I was not looking forward to reading this essay to learn about the author. I thought that I would learn enough about Jean Toomer through his work. Of course, if I didn’t read this essay I wouldn’t know that Jean Toomer was originally Nathan Pinchback Toomer. And that Toomer was not brought up because of his father abandoning his dear mother.
I understand why an author would want to write under a fictitious name, it has been many times. Lewis Carroll, S.E. Hinton, Robert Galbraith. I couldn’t think of the word but I know it know! This is known as pseudonym, when authors use different names for whatever they want. Robert Galbraith is J.K. Rowling. S.E. Hinton made her name initals so she would be assumed a man and published. And Lewis Carroll is Charles Dodgson a lonely mathematician.
I don’t think it’s wrong for a writer to use a different name. In fact I have one for myself if I ever needed one. Andra Ramm. In case I wrote something I wasn’t proud of or something I wouldn’t be taken seriously in. It’s okay for authors to do this even if they are technically deceiving us. The writer that they are might be trying a completely different genre and not want to be associated and compared to their previous works. That makes complete sense. A fake name is like a fresh start, a whole career to add on top of one. So Jean Toomer may not fully be Jean Toomer but his legacy lies with this name. I believe later in the essay it talked about him wanting to or actually changing his writing name because of the exceptions that came with the Toomer name.
A pseudonym name gives an author freedom to be a different writer. I imagine it would be exciting to have a whole career based on romance novels and then change your name to publish hard core murder mysteries. But I think it’s important for me to state that I don’t think Jean Toomer changed himself really. He was always a Toomer, so truly all he changed was his first name. And I think it was a right choice because of his grandfathers amazing history to showcase his linage.