Beginning ~ with birth pains

Moses, Man of the Mountain ~ by Zora Neale Hurston, 1939, fiction

"Have mercy!  Lord, have mercy on my poor soul!"  Women gave birth and whispered cries like this in caves and out-of-the-way places that humans didn't usually use for birthplaces.

Years ago, I read Zora Neale Hurston's seminal 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, so I'm excited to read another of her books.  This one appears to be very different, not about a town populated by blacks in Florida, but about Moses.  Yes, the one in the Bible.  From the back cover:

In this 1939 novel based on the familiar story of the Exodus, Zora Neale Hurston blends the Moses of the Old Testament with the Moses of black folklore and song to create a compelling allegory of power, redemption, and faith.  Narrated in a mixture of biblical rhetoric, black dialect, and colloquial English, Hurston traces Moses's life from the day he is launched into the Nile river in a reed basket, to his development as a great magician, to his transformation into the heroic rebel leader, the Great Emancipator.  From his dramatic confrontations with Pharaoh to his fragile negotiations with the wary Hebrews, this very human story is told with great humor, passion, and psychological insight — the hallmarks of Hurston as a writer and champion of black culture.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for today's Mister Linky.