Real Folks

“Taking direct aim at conventional literary and cultural histories of the 1930s that exalt nonfiction and documentary modes of production, this original, provocative study argues instead that readers and scholars need to pay much close attention to more unruly genres and texts produced during this turbulent era. . . . This engaging, engrossing study considerably expands and enriches knowledge or the American 1930s. Highly recommended.” - J. A. Miller, Choice

“Sonnet Retman presents a deft, razor-sharp revisionist interpretation of Depression-era America. She argues that, rather than social realism, an insurgent taste for satire—sated through idioms of minstrelsy, burlesque, ‘signifying ethnography,’ and screwball comedy—drove the smartest cultural challenges to an economy and polity careening off the tracks. George Schuyler, Nathanael West, Zora Neale Hurston, Preston Sturges, and other artists challenged reflexive celebrations of folk authenticity, dissected the racialist logic of modern market economies, and reframed the struggle to secure the integrity of American selves, both body and soul. Real Folks is profoundly illuminating in its assessment of the Depression era, and it is highly relevant to our own times.” - Adam Green, author of Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940–1955

“This wonderfully engaging account of the construction of the folk is fascinating for its components and the connections among them. It is an important study of documentary and satirical genres, as well as the relationship between genre categorizations and cultural narratives. Sonnet Retman is especially insightful on the relationship between literary form and cultural change.” - Priscilla Wald, author of Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative