Many of us are likely versed in the Harlem Renaissance. Even if it is vague, we have some notion of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Duke Ellington. What is less known is the level of organization behind these artists that supported their creative genius. Harlem Rhapsody, an award winning novel by Victoria Christopher Murray places the less famous Jesse Redmond Fauset and her advocacy of Black art at the center of it all. Jesse Redmond Fauset was a prolific artist herself, having produced numerous poems, short stories, essays, and four novels from 1925 to 1933. But it was her administrative role as editor of the NAACP’s Crisis magazine that earned her the title as “midwife” of the Harlem Renaissance. A good deal of Harlem Rhapsody is set at the NAACP headquarters on New York City’s Fifth Avenue. There, Fauset worked closely with W.E.B. Du Bois, head of the Crisis, who was also a writer in his own right and crusader for Black art. This reflects the historical record as historians such as David Levering Lewis have uncovered Du Bois’s outsized role in promoting the Harlem Renaissance, largely through the Crisis, which at that time, was one of the nation’s leading Black periodicals. Although cultural allies, it is the romantic relationship between Fauset and Dubois that provides much of the novel’s drama. Here, Murray does a masterful job of reconstructing a complicated partnership based on their different levels of prestige, ages (Fauset was fourteen years Du Bois’s junior), and relationship statuses (Du Bois was married and had several other romantic relationships). And Murray does this by not reducing Fauset to merely an appendage of Du Bois as many at the time did. Instead, Fauset is presented as fully dimensional. More importantly, she is projected as Du Bois’s equal. Yet given the confluence of race and gender, Fauset’s genius was not enough. Like many Black women, she needed the sponsorship of a man for wider professional recognition. This became a double edged sword. It provided Fauset with unprecedented opportunities while simultaneously making it extremely difficult to emerge from Du Bois’s professional and romantic orbit. Though a historic novel, Harlem Rhapsody is deeply researched and stays true to actual events. Murray’s engrossing writing style provides an easily accessible entry point to the Harlem Renaissance and the many luminaries who made the borough legendary. Cameos are made by Jean Toomer, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, and Countee Cullen.  There is also a concluding appendix where Murray lists those instances where she diverted from the historical record and her reasons for doing so. Readers will come away from the book with a much more nuanced understanding of the Harlem Renaissance and the women who brought it into being.