he letters included in Remember Me to
I Harlem bring to life a unique friendship.
between two men of very different back-

grounds. These men are both charming and witty let-
ter writers and their admiration for each other is
undeniable. In addition, Bemard’s scrupulous foot-
notes offer the reader a broader context of major his-
torical events in which the letters are written as well
as intriguing details about the individuals who enter
and exit the lives of Hughes and Van Vechten. Their
shared passion for poetry, blues, and literature is the
dominant subject of the letters. There are often sev-
eral references to key literary and artistic figures of
the time, including several notable queers (Nugent,
Cullen. Bentley, Smith, Wallace, Gertrude Stein, and

Hughes notes: “Your letters are so very charming,
dear Langston, that I look forward every morning to
finding one under the door. I have been lucky during
the past week.” A few pages of reading these letters
and you will begin to look at your own mail with a
more discerning eye, not to mention how empty
AOL’s “you’ve got mail” greeting begins to sound.
Van Vechten was known for his eloquent and witty
“sign-offs” of his letters, something Hughes would
periodically model in his own letters. Among the cre-
ative letter—ending farewells were: “tons of California
poppies and four chow dogs to you!; laurel and
bayleaves to you!; Pansies and Marguerites to You!”
The last of which Bernard had sold to Knopf as the
original title of the book. According to Bernard, her

Beyond what the book does or does not
reveal about each man’s sexuality, the
letters included in Remember Me to
Harlem illuminate the strains of
maintaining an interracial friendship in
an American society which was deeply
divided along racial and economic lines.

Above left, UVM Asst. Professor of English Emily Bernard. Right, Carl Van Vechten.

James Baldwin). Despite these bits of queer history,
don’t be completely fooled. If you are looking for a
book which will-finally “out” Hughes you will cer-
tainly be disappointed.

What the book does offer, however, is a per-
sonalized mapping of a friendship between two’ men,
one white and one black during a time when it was
still illegal for the races to congregate publicly. The
early letters reflect the tone and giddiness of two
boys in love who simply can’t wait a day until they
hear from the other. At the closing of one of his ear-
lier letters to Van Vechten, Hughes writes: “I do want
to come up to New York again soon. And remember
your promise: a whole day to look at your beautiful

things. And talk with you.” Van Vechten’s reply to

editor, a sophisticated New Yorker during that era
(she was Hughes’ last editor at Knopf) and still
today, understood the implications of “pansies” — in
the 1920s it was common for gay men to wear pan-
sies in their lapel to signify their inclusion in the gay
community. “But she also believed that it [Hughes’
homosexuality] was something he didn’t have to
announce, because it was so obvious and under-
stood,” says Bernard. Nevertheless, representatives
of Hughes’ estate balked at the title and suggested to
Bernard that it promised the reader something the
book was not offering: a discussion about their
[Hughes and Van Vechten] sexuality. Bernard eventu-
ally acquiesced, noting, “it is a fine line for the edi-

tor of a letters collection. Would I be making an

interpretation here? Or should it be something the
readership should make?” Even with the new title
Bernard admits, “a careful reading of the footnotes
would produce an interesting analysis.”

angston Hughes’ sexuality has long been a
l subject of debate among scholars and

activists. Bernard, who faces questions about
Hughes’ ambiguous sexuality in almost every inter-
view she conducts, claims that part of Hughes appeal
is his seeming innocence, thus the subject of his sex-
uality becomes central. “Many want to believe that
Hughes never had sex and that he was this chaste,
immaculate person,” Bernard notes, “and in fact it’s
hard to find any evidence to the contrary.”

References to women as girlfriends in

Hughes’ letters are fairly generic and once his “girl-
friends” mention marriage Hughes immediately sep-
arates himself from the relationship. “Yet at the same
time, it’s really hard for me to accept and believe
that a man who loved wine, literature and sleep as
much as Langston did, that he didn’t have sex,” says
Bernard. Bemard’s point about a shared (mis—)
understanding of Hughes’ sexuality is further illus-
trated in a footnote to a postcard dated December 20,
1940 in which Van Vechten wrote to Hughes: “. ..
Did you see your name in the list of eligible bache-
lors in the Amsterdam News?. . .”; the question’s foot-
note reveals that the list, which appeared on
December 14, 1940, described Langston as “likable,
conscientious, but somehow enveloped in a thin
cloud of mystery.”

an Vechten, on the other hand, lived a much
R  more open “gay” life, or at least as open as
one can be in those times. Although Van
Vechten was married for over 40 years to Fania
Marinoff, he also had, according to Bernard’s
research, at least three long-tenn relationships with
men (Donald Angus, Mark Lutz, and Saul Mauriber).
Bernard notes in her introduction that “Hughes
would have been aware of Van Vechten’s extra-mari-
tal activities — as was Fania — but they do not play a
part in the friendship the two shared in letters.”

In addition, Van Vechten kept private scrap-
books, which consisted of nude and pornographic
pictures of men. The scrapbooks also included clip-
pings from newspapers about incidents of gay bash-
ing and the infamous Drag Balls, which took place in
Harlem and Greenwich Village and were popular
with both the heterosexual and homosexual commu-
nities. Interestingly, Van Vechten included his scrap-
books as part of his personal papers, which were

bequeathed to Yale University. The scrapbooks came ,

with one condition however: that they were not to be
opened until 25 years after his death. Today the Van
Vechten scrapbooks are subject to the mere curious
as well as the serious scholar who consider them an
important contribution to pre-Stonewall gay history.

eyond what the book does or does not reveal 
about each man’s sexuality, the letters includ- :

ed in Remember Me to Harlem illuminate the I

strains of maintaining an interracial friendship in an
American society which was deeply divided along
racial and economic lines. Only a few years after
their first meeting, Hughes finds himself in a posi-
tion of defending Van Vechten’s novel Nigger

Heaven (1926). As Bernard describes in the introduc-
tion to her book, “the novel would have disappeared '

like most 19205 potboilers were it not for a few off-
color scenes and its title.” Van Vechten saw the title
as ironic and included a footnote at the first appear-
ance of the word “nigger” which stated that it was a

word commonly used by African-Americans but not ‘
to be spoken by whites. The publication of the novel 1

was negatively received by many African—American

leaders, including W.E.B. DuBois, and is often seen -