Overview

A vibrant, deeply researched biography of A'Lelia Walker--daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and herself a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance--written by her great-granddaughter. Dubbed the ""joy goddess of Harlem's 1920s"" by poet Langston Hughes, A'Lelia Walker, daughter of millionaire entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and the author's great-grandmother and namesake, is a fascinating figure whose legendary parties and Dark Tower salon helped define the Harlem Renaissance. After inheriting her mother's hair care enterprise, A'Lelia would become America's first high profile black heiress and a prominent patron of the arts. Joy Goddess takes readers inside her three New York homes--a mansion, a townhouse, and a pied-a-terre--where she entertained Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, James Weldon Johnson, Carl Van Vechten, W.E.B. DuBois, and other cultural, social and intellectual luminaries of the Roaring Twenties. Now, based on extensive research and Walker's personal correspondence, her great-granddaughter creates a meticulous, nuanced portrait of a charismatic woman struggling to define herself as a wife, mother, and businesswoman outside her famous mother's sphere. In Joy Goddess, A'Lelia's radiant personality and impresario instincts--at the center of a vast, artistic social world where she flourished as a fashion trendsetter and international traveler--are brought to vivid and unforgettable life.

Full Product Details

9781416544425

Table of Contents

Reviews

""A'Lelia Bundles takes us on an exhilarating journey deeper into the life and times of her great grandmother; the legendary A'Lelia Walker, daughter of the incomparable Madam CJ Walker. A'Lelia's gift for weaving history, legend and a tale of resilience makes Joy Goddess a must read for anyone fascinated by the Afrostocracy of the Harlem Renaissance and the complexities of America's first black heiress. She mines the psychological and emotional impediments that saddled her namesake as she flourished and traversed through her life. Truly, 'uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.'""--Blair Underwood, Actor, Producer and Storyteller ""In this meticulously researched, beautifully written book, A'Lelia Walker emerges from the shadows of the mythology that have long surrounded her. Her biographer, also her great-granddaughter and namesake, A'Leila Bundles is a gifted storyteller who has mined the archive with the astute skill of the best historians, and (like the award winning journalist she is) also has conducted in-depth interviews and reporting, to give us a compelling portrait of a complex, passionate, singular figure and the times she occupied. Walker not only lived through the Harlem Renaissance, she helped to shape it as muse and patron. Joy Goddess has much to teach us about that period and much to teach us about navigating our own. A stellar accomplishment.""--Dr. Farah Jasmin Griffin, author of Read Until You Understand ""Joy Goddess is a remarkable biography. A'Lelia Bundles brings A'Lelia Walker's story to life with such grace, clarity, and beauty. By shedding new light on Walker's extraordinary life, Joy Goddess enriches our understanding of the complexities of race, gender, and class during the Harlem Renaissance.""--Dr. Keisha N. Blain, co-editor of the #1 New York Times bestseller Four Hundred Souls ""Joy Goddess is a satisfying journey through family dynamics, cultural movements, and the complexities of being a public, known, celebrated Black women like A'Lelia Walker, who many saw, knew, and admired but, as this beautifully written, tightly told story makes clear, few understood. A'Lelia Bundles' biography is about one woman, but in the telling, becomes a startlingly engaging, vitally important story of an era that you will not want to put down.""--Dr. Noliwe Rooks, author of Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children ""This is a story of Black wealth and talent, and the universals of love, legacy, death, taxes, inadequacy, resilience, and hair--in other words, the things that belie Joy. The life of A'Lelia Walker, though a figure of extraordinary singularity, covers the map from New York to the Midwest to Tuskegee to Paris to Jerusalem and encompasses an equally wide expanse of human experience. The movie script practically writes itself!""--Diane McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution ""An extraordinary biography of A'Lelia Walker, an extraordinary American! A'Lelia Bundles's Joy Goddess: A'Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance works confidently in three dimensions: It's a richly personal evocation of an uncommon life based in family photographs, letters, and artifacts, the all too rare details that bring a life to life. In addition, Bundles's familiarity with the Walker Company's business ledgers anchors A'Lelia Walker's story materially. And American social history undergirds the whole. This surefooted biography does so much more than capture the unique life of this American heiress, this quintessential New Yorker. It's a truly amazing achievement.""--Dr. Nell Irvin Painter, author of I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays ""From her humble beginnings in St. Louis to her reign as the doyenne of the Harlem Renaissance, Bundles's sparkling storytelling brings A'Lelia Walker out from the shadow cast by her mother, Madam CJ Walker. Bundles illuminates the life of one of the most fascinating women of the early twentieth century with the style and elegance worthy of the subject and adds an essential piece to the history of the Harlem Renaissance.""--Dr. Tiffany M. Gill, author of Beauty Shop Politics ""The eventful life of a celebrity heiress.. Bundles, a former network television executive and producer, draws on family archives to create a lively portrait of her great-grandmother, A'Lelia Walker (1885-1931), a tireless champion of Black artists, writers, and musicians.. Bundles captures her energy, her drive, and her commitment to the creative community that she nourished. An engaging biography of a formidable woman.""--Kirkus Reviews ""A'Lelia Bundles has followed On Her Own Ground, her masterful biography of Madam CJ Walker, with an equally significant addition to the story of one of the nation's most influential families. This long-awaited biography of A'Lelia Walker is deeply researched, and authoritatively narrated. This is a page-turner that gives the life in full of a woman whose cultural, social and political impact has been too often underestimated. The heartaches, triumphs, the opulent literary salons, world tours, the philanthropy, the political acumen, the nurturing of a generation of Black artists, all the rich material of A'Lelia Walker's life will transport and inspire the lucky readers of this book.""--Marita Golden, author of How To Become A Black Writer: Creating and Honoring Black Stories That Matter ""A'Lelia Walker, heir and conflicted CEO of the Madam C J Walker haircare empire, hostess extraordinaire, and maven of the Harlem Renaissance, emerges with exquisite vitality in this splendid biography by her namesake and descendant, A'Lelia Bundles. Joy Goddess glitters with drama, intrigue, and spectacular historical detail, relying on carefully assembled archival materials and oral histories from the author's private collections and interviews. But like the diamonds of which A'Lelia Walker was famously fond, this biographical treatment also cuts, laying bare the inner tensions, cold compromises, and sordid betrayals that came with the quest to chase property, luxury, respectability, and media coverage. In this sparkling tragedy, the Black elites and celebrity artists of the 1920s emerge as fully human - talented, imaginative, and flawed. A sumptuous feast for students of Black arts and culture who have wondered what truly went on inside the walls of The Dark Tower, the storied Harlem Renaissance haunt for artists and social curators who shaped the culture of their day and left a legacy for the ages.""--Tiya Miles, National Book Award winner for All That She Carried

Author Information

A'Lelia Bundles is the author of New York Times Notable Book and bestseller On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker. A former ABC News Washington, DC, deputy bureau chief and an Emmy Award-winning producer, she participated in residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell while writing Joy Goddess. Visit her website at ALeliaBundles.com or on Instagram at @ALeliaBundles.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available