Simmons, Ryan. Chesnutt and Realism: A Study of the Novels.(Book review)

Simmons, Ryan. Chesnutt and Realism: A Study of the Novels. Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press, 2006. 288 pp. Cloth: $39.95

The recent publication of four previously unpublished novels by Charles Chesnutt provides fertile ground for new holistic examinations of Chesnutt's novels in terms of thematic, generic, and aesthetic elements. Ryan Simmons's Chesnutt and Realism: A Study of the Novels signals this new era in Chesnutt scholarship; it traces the development of Chesnutt's use of realist strategies throughout his career as a novelist to attack racism in post-bellum America and motivate his readers to participate in progressive civil rights reform. Simmons explores each novel with a shifting definition of realism that reflects Chesnutt's own developing sense of the importance of truthful storytelling, paying particular attention to the way Chesnutt's depiction of moral and political aspects of contemporary race relations is meant to lead readers to "an understanding of such issues that must not be merely abstract" (3). Simmons works with an unorthodox definition of realism that acknowledges Chesnutt's tendency to feature implausible events and symbolic characters, while foregrounding the novels' realist aversion to escapism and their insistence that readers "shift perspective so that they acknowledge, understand, and respond to the world's realities rather than averting their eyes"--a definition of realism which "implicitly demands change" (5). Responding to those who would take issue with Chesnutt's inclusion as a major figure in the realist canon, given the strong political register of what are often read as his "purpose novels," Simmons asserts that "[c]entral to Chesnutt's realism is the conviction that understanding reality rightly requires action" (15), thus denying the mutual exclusivity of realism and political directive.

Among the book's most significant contributions to Chesnutt criticism is the first chapter's analysis of the seldom-discussed "Northern novels," A Business Career (1898), The Rainbow Chasers (1900), and Evelyn's Husband (1903), which seemingly evade race politics altogether. Simmons makes the compelling claim that some of the main characters in these novels might be--unobviously--of mixed race, but that the racial backgrounds of these characters remain equivocal, or submerged, for both the novels' other characters and their readers, since the revelation would have proven unpalatable to a contemporary audience. By analyzing these lesser-known novels for their subversive (though perhaps timid) suggestions about the interpretive nature of race, Simmons convincingly unites them with Chesnutt's major works, especially the more overtly polemical treatments of racial and class conflict of The House Behind the Cedars (1900) and The Marrow of Tradition (1901).

Chapter 2 continues to emphasize Chesnutt's "realist" approach to his audience throughout his detailed analyses of The House Behind the Cedars and the novella Mandy Oxendine (1897). The discussion here of the 'tragic mulatta' device in Mandy Oxendine ...