The Body in the Library Book Club: Harlem Renaissance Mysteries | In-Person Book Club

Date / Time

  • February 11, 2025
    6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
  • March 11, 2025
    6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Location

2008-2010 Delancey Place, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103, United States

Registration

Register for All Sessions

Register for The Conjure-Man Dies

Register for A Death in Harlem: A Novel

Register for Dead Dead Girls

Season Two: Harlem Renaissance Mysteries

Celebrate the centennial of the Harlem Renaissance by rediscovering a talented mystery writer from the era, and then engage with recent mystery novels set in early 20th-century Harlem. This season of The Body in the Library will showcase collection objects from the Rosenbach’s books and manuscripts, documenting the vibrant Black literary, artistic, musical, and social scene in New York and beyond in the early decades of the 1900s.

 

Session 1, January 14: Rudolph Fisher, The Conjure-Man Dies (1932)

Join the Rosenbach as we rediscover a classic of Black American literature written by an inspirational figure of the Harlem Renaissance who died too young. This groundbreaking mystery is the firstknown novel to feature a Black detective and all Black characters.   

After African conjure-man N’Gana Frimbo is discovered bludgeoned in his consultation room, police detective Perry Dart and physician Dr. Archer team up to solve the baffling mystery, as locals Bubber Brown and Jinx Jenkins undertake their own investigations.  

Educated at Brown University and Howard University Medical School, Rudolph Fisher (1897-1934) was a musician and writer with a penchant for detective fiction. He died of cancer in 1934, leaving behind this mystery novel, which later was adapted for the stage.

 

Session 2, February 11: Karla FC Holloway, A Death in Harlem: A Novel (2019) 

In A Death in Harlem, academic and writer Karla FC Holloway weaves a mystery in the bon vivant world of the Harlem Renaissance. Taking as her point of departure the tantalizingly ambiguous “death by misadventure” at the climax of Nella Larsen’s Passing, Holloway accompanies readers to the sunlit boulevards and shaded sidestreets of Jazz Age New York. A murder there will test the mettle, resourcefulness, and intuition of Harlem’s first “colored” policeman, Weldon Haynie Thomas.  

Clear glass towers rising in Manhattan belie a city where people are often not what they seem. For some here, identity is a performance of passing—passing for another race, for another class, for someone safe to trust. Thomas’s investigation illuminates the societies and secret societies, the intricate code of manners, the world of letters, and the broad social currents of 1920s Harlem.

  

Session 3, March 11: Nekesa Afia, Dead Dead Girls (2021)

Harlem, 1926. Young Black women like Louise Lloyd are ending up dead.  

Following a harrowing kidnapping ordeal when she was in her teens, Louise is doing everything she can to maintain a normal life. She’s succeeding, too. She spends her days working at Maggie’s Café and her nights at the Zodiac, Harlem’s hottest speakeasy. Louise’s friends, especially her girlfriend, Rosa Maria Moreno, might say she’s running from her past and the notoriety that still stalks her, but don’t tell her that.  

When a girl turns up dead in front of the café, Louise is forced to confront something she’s been trying to ignore—two other local Black girls have been murdered in the past few weeks. After an altercation with a police officer gets her arrested, Louise is given an ultimatum: She can either help solve the case or wind up in a jail cell. Louise has no choice but to investigate and soon finds herself toe-to-toe with a murderous mastermind hell-bent on taking more lives, maybe even her own….  

 

Image credit: Oliver Herford, “The Bibliofiends,” artwork featured on the cover of Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach, The Unpublishable Memoirs, (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1917), Rosenbach call no. Ro1 917a copy 2. 

 

Book Purchase 

The Rosenbach has partnered with The Head & The Hand Books (H&H Books) to supply copies of book club selections at reasonable prices. Order your books here. Learn more about H&H Books here 

 

Book Club Facilitators

Dr. Petra Clark is a librarian, educator, literary historian, and lifelong fan of the mystery genre. Her first bookish obsession as a child was the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, and the opening sequence of PBS’s Mystery! is etched into her brain. While she did not grow up to be a detective, Petra’s career path still lets her flex her investigative muscles. She earned a Ph.D. in Victorian literature and art in 2019, and she currently works in the Special Collections department at the University of Delaware Library. Tracking down clues while conducting historical research is one of the things she likes best about her work as a scholar and librarian—and it has the benefit of not (usually) involving murder! She looks forward to discussing fictional plot twists and red herrings with all of you.
 

Dr. Samantha Nystrom has been an avid fan of mysteries since childhood, with Scooby Doo introducing her to the genre. She learned to interrogate what makes a good mystery during her time at the University of Delaware, where she received her Ph.D. in English Literature. There she became an archival detective, going into special collections to uncover traces of information lost to time. While at UD, she taught classes ranging from film studies to British Literature to composition, guiding students how to unlock clues in a text to better grasp a complete picture of what the work is doing. She currently lives in New Jesey and is a writer at Thomas Jefferson University. When she isn’t reading and writing, she can be found playing Scrabble, coloring, going on a walk, or investigating the goings-on of local birds with her bumbling, feline sidekick, Percy.   

Dr. Alexander Lawrence Ames, Director of Outreach & Engagement at the Rosenbach Museum & Library, has been eagerly reading mystery novels since his teenage years, with an early interest in the Hardy Boys followed by a teenage fondness for Agatha Christie’s signature characters: Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. He holds an M.A. in American material culture, an M.A. in history, and a Ph.D. in history of American civilization and museum studies from the University of Delaware. At the Rosenbach, he works with his colleagues on gallery exhibitions, tours, and programs including book clubs like this one. When not facilitating book club discussions or leading Behind the Bookcase tours, you’ll likely find Dr. Ames sleuthing in the Rosenbach’s incredible collections, magnifying glass in hand, trying to solve some historical mystery. Dr. Ames is definitely not the culprit, and you can absolutely trust him.