Jonah's Gourd Vine is Zora Neale Hurston's 1934 debut novel. The novel is a semi-autobiographical novel following John Buddy Pearson and his wife, Lucy. The characters share the same first names as Hurston's parents and make a similar migration from Notasulga, Alabama to Hurston's childhood home, Eatonville, Florida. Hurston wrote the novel after publisher Bertram Lippencott read "The Gilded Six-Bits" and demonstrated interest. After its publication by J. B. Lippencott & Co, the novel received generally favorable reviews. The novel's title derives from , using the gourd vine from the passage as a metaphor for the main character of the novel, a philandering preacher. The novel displays the experiences of Black life in the post-Reconstruction era. Hurston explores themes including marital dysfunction, generational trauma, and testimony. Background Hurston first had the idea for Jonah's Gourd Vine while conducting research in New Orleans and the Bahamas on hoodoo practices and folklore. Hurston wrote Mules and Men and "The Gilded Six-Bits" before four different publishers expressed interest in her writing a novel. Hurston told an editor from the J. B. Lippincott Company that she was in the process of writing Jonah's Gourd Vine, though she had not started it, and finished writing the novel in about three months. The novel received largely favorable reviews, many of which were attributed to Hurston's use of dialect and folklore. This novel reflects the ideas and elements which Hurston focuses on in her following novels. Plot The novel opens with a fight between John’s mother and stepfather, Amy and Ned Crittenden, ending with Ned verbally and physically abusing his wife. John hits Ned to defend his mother, and Ned demands that he leave the home. John does not argue, stating that leaving cannot be worse than living with Ned. His mother sends him to the plantation he was born on, owned by Alf Pearson, to seek out work. On his way, John thinks of all the girls he will meet. Once he is “over the Creek” he encounters a girl named Lucy Ann Potts at a schoolhouse. Soon after, Alf Pearson tells John that he should attend school to learn how to read and write. John's relationship with Lucy develops as they interact in school and church. Lucy is from a well-off family that does not approve of John, but the pair still gets married nearly a year after meeting. Lucy moves onto Alf Pearson’s plantation