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Imitation of Life
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780822333241
ISBN: 0822333244
Label: Duke University Press
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 298
Publication Date: November 15, 2004
Publisher: Duke University Press
Studio: Duke University Press
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Editorial Review:
A bestseller in 1933, and subsequently adapted into two beloved and controversial films, Imitation of Life has played a vital role in ongoing conversations about race, femininity, and the American Dream. Bea Pullman, a white single mother, and her African American maid, Delilah Johnston, also a single mother, rear their daughters together and become business partners. Combining Bea’s business savvy with Delilah’s irresistible southern recipes, they build an Aunt Jemima-like waffle business and an international restaurant empire. Yet their public success brings them little happiness. Bea is torn between her responsibilities as a businesswoman and those of a mother; Delilah is devastated when her light-skinned daughter, Peola, moves away to pass as white. Imitation of Life struck a chord in the 1930s, and it continues to resonate powerfully today.The author of numerous bestselling novels, a masterful short story writer, and an outspoken social activist, Fannie Hurst was a major celebrity in the first half of the twentieth century. Daniel Itzkovitz’s introduction situates Imitation of Life in its literary, biographical, and cultural contexts, addressing such topics as the debates over the novel and films, the role of Hurst’s one-time secretary and great friend Zora Neale Hurston in the novel’s development, and the response to the novel by Hurst’s friend Langston Hughes, whose one-act satire, “Limitations of Life” (which reverses the races of Bea and Delilah), played to a raucous Harlem crowd in the late 1930s. This edition brings a classic of popular American literature back into print.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Oldie but goodie
I bought this movie for my mum, every once in a while when it comes on tv she would just sit there and watch it. and then bit by bit we would watch it with her. it is a good movie, its black and white but you dont always need colour. there is a lot of colour issues in the movie so just enjoy it plain and simple
Rating: - RESPONSE TO "Suds from a bygone era".
The reason you didn't really get the lesbian connection is because it isn't there. In the book and in both versions of the movie, maids/live-in-housekeepers were the norm and friendship of any kind was rare between the classes, much less the races, ...the whole point of the story! (Bea treating Delilah like a business-woman and business-partner is the more heartwarming part of the story.) You can see this in the 1934 movie by the fact that Delilah is answering a newspaper ad for a colored maid and ... Read More
Rating: - LIMITATION OF LIFE...
This is an oldie but a goodie, and although it may seem somewhat anachronistic, in fact, almost embarrassingly and offensively so, it is well worth reading. A best selling novel when it was first released in 1933, the reader should keep in mind that much of what is in the book would today be perceived as racist. The book is reflective of a paternalistic view of African-Americans that was prevalent at the time in which this book was written. It is certainly a view that is jarring in these more enlightened ... Read More
Rating:  - Suds from a bygone era
Fannie Hurst's 1933 novel IMITATION OF LIFE concerns a recently widowed young mother, Bea Pullman, who by chance teams up with Delilah, a homeless black woman who is in the same situation. The women move in together and become business partners. Delilah's daughter Peola is so light-skinned that strangers are surprised that the two are related. Thanks to Delilah's culinary talents and Bea's business sense, the women manage to build a chain of successful restaurants and become wealthy. But success has a ... Read More
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