SOURCE: A review of Black Magic, in The Saturday Review of Literature, Vol. V, No. 48, June 22, 1929, p.1130.

In the following review of Black Magic, Valentine assesses Morand's portrayal of Blacks as detached but knowledgeable.

Paul Morand's attitude towards the negro is typically Gallic in its absence of those prejudices which are apt to enter into our own view of him. [Black Magic] consists of a group of negro studies which gain value from the detachment of their author, and which had their inception in the fascination exerted upon him by jazz. Drawn by the ineluctable urge of the music he traveled over half the globe and visited nearly two score negro countries. The knowledge of negro nature and the occult powers that possess it gained from his wanderings he has set down in this book.

Unstinted pains are not, however, always attended by adequate reward. The voodooism that...