<Each chapter positions relevant texts within a historical and cultural framework but also develops intertextual connections to fellow writers. The result is a richer, more complex understanding of this period's literary landscape that includes not only its overt racism but also its often-overlooked gendered and sexual dynamics....Higly recommended.

- Choice

Ayesha Hardison's book is ambitious, interdisciplinary, and masterfully crafted. It will productively and substantially move the scholarly conversation in social realism, mid-twentieth-century American arts and letters, and African American women's literary history. Hardison skillfully balances close readings of texts with consideration of broader social and historical contexts that enrich her analysis.

- Stacy Morgan, University of Alabama, author of Rethinking Social Realism: African American Art and Literature, 1930-1953