Podcast Summary: NPR’s Book of the Day – Revisiting 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'

Date: November 29, 2025
Hosts: Andrew Limbong & BA Parker
Guests: R. Eric Thomas (writer & Chicago Tribune columnist), Tayari Jones (author)

Episode Overview

This episode is a vibrant group reflection on Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, discussed as part of NPR’s “Books We’ve Loved” series. The hosts and their guests explore the enduring relevance of Hurston’s work, the craft of her storytelling, its fraught historical reception, and its profound legacy in Black literature and culture. The conversation is lively, personal, and peppered with humor, candid impressions, and thoughtful critique.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Personal Connections and First Encounters

• Hosts and guests reflect on first reading the novel—often as teens or young adults—and how impressions change upon rereading as adults.
  • R. Eric Thomas recounts first reading “Their Eyes” in high school, falling for its language and story so much that his AOL handle was “teacake8,” despite not agreeing with the character’s choices (04:12).
  • BA Parker highlights how the book resonated with her as a teen on her grandparents’ farm, signifying both hope and liberation (02:41).
  • Andrew Limbong describes his initial resistance to the novel (“it felt like a slog”), contrasted with his deeper appreciation and emotional openness on rereading as an adult (03:09).

2. The “Coming of Age” Frame—At Any Age

• Challenging the notion that coming-of-age stories belong to the young:
  • Parker frames Janie’s story as coming of age even though Janie is 36: “Coming of age shouldn’t belong to 18-year-olds… I also think 40-year-olds come of age. I’m rooting for the middle aged people right now.” (02:11-02:22)
  • The group celebrates the narrative of middle-aged self-discovery—“coming of middle age”—and how Hurston’s heroine finds agency and love later in life.

3. Zora Neale Hurston: The Woman Behind the Book

• Hurston’s craft, folklore, and legacy:
  • BA Parker details Hurston’s background—writing much of the book in Haiti in just seven weeks, grounding her narrative in Black folklore and oral tradition (07:21).
  • Hurston’s “anthropological” approach blends folk tradition into fiction; her use of dialect is seen as both authentic and innovative, despite later criticism (07:49, 19:13).
  • The panel discusses how, as a central but undervalued Harlem Renaissance figure, Hurston’s work was initially marginalized, selling only ~5,000 copies before fading into obscurity (08:51).

4. The Richard Wright Review and Literary Respectability

• Richard Wright’s negative review is given special attention:
  • Andrew reads aloud a scathing passage from Wright, accusing Hurston of pandering to a white audience and lacking substance:

    “The sensory sweep of her novel carries no theme, no message, no thought... her novel is not addressed to the Negro but to a white audience whose chauvinistic tastes she knows how to satisfy.” (10:05)

  • Parker and Eric critique this view as emblematic of respectability politics and gendered double standards faced by Black women writers (09:23, 09:45, 12:16).

5. Recovery and Enduring Legacy of the Novel

• The book’s return to prominence in the 1970s, thanks to Alice Walker’s campaign to recognize Hurston’s contributions, is marked as a turning point (11:01).
  • Parker:

    “Zora Neale Hurston essentially died in obscurity. And it wasn’t until Alice Walker... wrote about her pilgrimage to find Zora’s unmarked grave... in 1975 that gave her work a second life.” (11:01)

  • Eric Thomas adds:

    “We are only as great as a people, as a literary society, as all of our voices, as opposed to simply like the few that we select. So I’m very grateful to Alice Walker for bringing this book back.” (12:16)

6. Dialect, Authenticity, and the Value of Black Folklore

• Parker spotlights Hurston's use of “eye dialect,” defending it as both authentic and anthropologically rooted—rebutting Wright's criticism as “coming from inside the house” (13:19).
• Audio clip: Hurston herself describes her process of learning and preserving folk songs in her community (14:45–15:12), demonstrating her dedication to authentic representation.
  • Hurston:

    “I just get in the crowd with the people, and if they sing it… I keep on till I learn all the sounds and all the verses, and then I sing them back to the people...” (14:45)

7. Janie’s Marriages – Matryoshka Dolls of Liberation

• The group analyzes Janie’s three marriages as progressively deeper layers of agency and liberation:
  • Thomas:

    “I see the three husbands as this kind of matryushka doll of deeper levels of liberation... and then she finally gets back home and she’s only responsible to herself. That is true liberation.” (19:08–20:17)

  • Parker calls the outcome “wish fulfillment”—Janie finally lives and keeps her autonomy (18:30, 18:54).

8. On Empathy, Judgment, and Narrative Structure

• Eric Thomas describes the book’s challenge as expanding the reader’s empathy:

  • “One of the pristine challenges of this book is expanding your sense of empathy for this woman as a main character... [Hurston] begins the book with this sort of chorus of dissent, this spiteful tone as a way of counteracting our own judgment.” (23:23)

• Andrew Limbong:

  “That’s the trick of the book is, like, you’re at one end judging her at the beginning, and then you feel for her towards the end.” (24:20–25:12)

9. Why This Book Still Matters Today

• Thomas:

  “On a craft level, it’s extraordinary at the sentence level... at a larger plot level, it challenges us at every step, but also it embraces us, it welcomes us in... It gives us a crucial view of a part of American society... the literary canon [is] still having resonance to who we are today.” (26:11)

• Parker:

  “It is such... a delicious book that fits into a pocket of the canon that... isn’t too represented... Their Eyes Were Watching God feels miraculous. It still feels timely to me...” (26:50)

• Andrew notes how Hurston’s prose shifts between musical dialogue and lush, lyrical metaphor, creating the book’s “deliciousness” (27:38–28:26).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Eric Thomas, on identifying with Janie:

  “I identified with Janie like I was like a 16 year old cisgender boy. I was like, I am this 37 year old woman. I am searching for love and identity.” (00:00, repeated at 05:08)

• On the anti-respectability thrust:

  “I find having gone through some of [Wright’s] work before, there’s like a slight embarrassment... that’s loving white people too much. Sorry, Richard, sorry, you know, like, Zorich, wrong.” – R. Eric Thomas (16:08)

• Parker, on Hurston’s overlooked legacy:

  “The fact that these women are immediately put in the margins of their own cultural moment... Zora Neale Hurston essentially died in obscurity.” (11:01)

• Hurston herself, on collecting folklore:

  “And then I sing them back to the people until they tell me that I can sing them just like them. And then I carry my memory.” (15:12)

• Eric Thomas, on Hurston’s empathy challenge:

  “Zora Neale Hurston begins the book with this sort of chorus of dissent... as a way of, like, counteracting our own judgment. She’s like, you’re going to judge this person... Then immediately the next chapter, we’re brought into her inner circle.” (23:23)

• Parker, imagining Janie’s liberation:

  “Trying to think of other books where it’s like, sexually liberated woman who first off lives at the end... and gets like autonomy. In some ways this book feels like wish fulfillment.” (18:43–19:05)

Extended Segment: Tayari Jones on Hurston’s Legacy (31:42–35:55)

• On Hurston’s influence on her writing about the South:

  “She is able to tell a universal story using a language very specific, not just to the south... but to her particular hometown. Like, just the way that she represents her home helped me in representing mine...” (32:14)

• On folklore and cultural memory:

  “Many of us turn to folklore. Like, we are now creating folklore, but we just don’t know it’s folklore yet... if people are still telling that story, if it has stood the test of time, it becomes folklore.” (33:47–35:25)

• If Hurston were alive today?

  “She led the culture. She didn’t follow the culture.” (36:21)

Book Recommendations – "If You Like This, Read That" (28:55)

• R. Eric Thomas:
  • Getting Mother’s Body by Suzan-Lori Parks – for lyricism, Black sound/culture, and strong women.
• Andrew Limbong:
  • Tom Lake by Ann Patchett – about a woman recounting her complex love story, agency in the face of judgment.
• BA Parker:
  • Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel – about navigating stifling familial and societal expectations, magical realism, liberation.

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening Personal Reflections: 00:00–05:08
• Summary & Framing as Coming-of-Age: 01:09–02:24
• First Encounters & Rereading: 03:09–04:08
• Hurston's Background: 07:21–08:51
• Richard Wright Review & Debate: 10:00–12:16
• Audio Clip—Hurston on Folklore: 14:45–15:12
• Analysis of Janie’s Marriages: 17:32–20:17
• Discussion of Empathy for Janie: 23:06–25:12
• Why Read Now/Book’s Craft: 26:05–28:37
• Book Recommendations: 28:55–31:07
• Tayari Jones Interview: 31:42–36:39

Final Takeaways

• Their Eyes Were Watching God endures as a radical narrative of Black women’s agency, liberation, and voice, resonating for new generations.
• Hurston’s fusion of folklore, local dialect, and lyrical prose is both craft and cultural preservation.
• Revisiting the novel offers a timely mirror for contemporary conversations about respectability, judgment, and the richness of marginalized voices.

This summary is intended for listeners who want an immersive yet concise guide to the key ideas, tonal moments, and intellectual currents of the episode.