The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

The term “intertextuality” refers to relationships between texts and is often used to describe one author purposely referencing another. Jeffers uses intertextuality throughout the novel, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly. The genealogy with which she opens the book brings to mind biblical genealogies that trace family lines through dozens of generations. The title of the book evokes T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a poem about a man filled with regrets about the emptiness that characterizes his life. Ailey’s high school, Toomer High, undoubtedly takes its name from famous Black author Jean Toomer, who lived and wrote in Georgia for many years. Cordelia’s memories about Wood Place burning down echo the Southern Gothic plots of William Faulkner’s fiction. Cordelia says that Jinx Franklin came to the front door of Wood Place but was told to go around to the back entrance by the Black maid; this exact series of events served as the origin story for one of Faulkner’s greatest villains, Thomas Sutpen. When Wood Place subsequently catches fire, the reader has to wonder if Jinx Franklin set the blaze, just like another Faulknerian character, the perpetually aggrieved pyromaniac Abner Snopes in “Barn Burning.”

In addition to these indirect references, Jeffers directly mentions many authors and texts as well. Lydia and Ailey enjoy reading Alice Walker’s The Color Purple together, and the restaurant Ailey loves in North Carolina, “Shug’s,” bears the name of one of that novel’s main characters. Uncle Root has memories of meeting Black novelists Zora Neale Hurston and Jessie Fauset in his youth. The novel’s blending of realistic fiction with supernatural elements evokes Toni Morrison’s works. Then, of course, there is the great scholar himself, W.E.B. Du Bois, whose writings provide interludes between each of the novel’s 11 parts and whom Uncle Root idolizes as an intellectual hero.

While readers could dissect and analyze what Jeffers does with each of these references individually, they collectively function in a few important ways. First, Jeffers privileges works of Southern writers. Hurston, Toomer, Walker, and Faulkner all meet this criterion. While many Black Americans moved North during the Great Migration of the 20th century, many others remained in the South, and Jeffers is interested in what compels a person to stay in their home area despite evident disadvantages. Connection to the idea of “home” influences many of the novel’s characters, ultimately coalescing into the defining interest of Ailey’s academic career.

Second, Jeffers puts Black artists on the same plane as canonical white writers like Eliot and Faulkner, maintaining their equality even if institutions like the academy have not consistently recognized Black writers’ artistic achievements.

Third, Jeffers suggests that artistic inspirations form their own kind of ancestry, supplementing familial bonds. Ailey can draw on her childhood spent reading Hurston and Walker as much as she can draw on her summers in Chicasetta when it comes to fueling her own creativity and scholarly pursuits.