A vibrant, deeply researched biography of A’Lelia Walker—daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and herself a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance—written by her great-granddaughter. Dubbed the “joy goddess of Harlem’s 1920s” by poet Langston Hughes, A’Lelia Walker, daughter of millionaire entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and the author’s great-grandmother and namesake, is a fascinating figure whose legendary parties and Dark Tower salon helped define the Harlem Renaissance. After inheriting her mother’s hair care enterprise, A’Lelia would become America’s first high profile black heiress and a prominent patron of the arts. Joy Goddess takes readers inside her three New York homes—a mansion, a townhouse, and a pied-a-terre—where she entertained Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, James Weldon Johnson, Carl Van Vechten, W.E.B. DuBois, and other cultural, social and intellectual luminaries of the Roaring Twenties. Now, based on extensive research and Walker’s personal correspondence, her great-granddaughter creates a meticulous, nuanced portrait of a charismatic woman struggling to define herself as a wife, mother, and businesswoman outside her famous mother’s sphere. In Joy Goddess, A’Lelia’s radiant personality and impresario instincts—at the center of a vast, artistic social world where she flourished as a fashion trendsetter and international traveler—are brought to vivid and unforgettable life.

アレーリア・バンドルズが綴る本作は、単なる伝記を超え、狂騒の二十年代を彩った女性の魂を鮮烈に描いています。母マダム・C.J.ウォーカーの巨大な影から脱し、独自の美学を貫こうとするアレーリアの姿は、自由への渇望に満ちています。彼女が開いたサロンの喧騒が聞こえるような筆致は、読者を一気にハーレム・ルネサンスの黄金期へ誘います。 曾孫である著者だけが辿り着けた私的な書簡に基づく描写は、圧倒的なリアリズムを放ちます。富豪の相続人という華やかな顔の裏にある、一人の女性としての苦悩が多層的に紐解かれます。知性と感性が交差し、ラングストン・ヒューズら異才たちと共鳴した彼女の「歓喜」の正体とは。歴史の中で気高く生きた女性の真実を射抜く、至高の人間讃歌です。