Frank Yerby and his Readers
This chapter discusses why and how Frank Yerby’s readers diminished greatly within a few years of his death. This essay also considers how Yerby may not have received support from African-American literary community leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes that may have kept his novels in print. Additionally, because Yerby worked in the historical romance genre, or what he referred to as costume dramas, where most of his protagonists are white, is explored as a possible correlation to his disappearing readership. Essentially, knowing Yerby’s history as an author and seeing how critics categorized his books as disposable fiction is necessary in understanding who his readers were and why he went from bestselling novelist to nearly being forgotten.