Language and Dialect

I've mentioned before my desire to be able to read books in the native language/vernacular. Zora Neale Hurston satisfies this as well as a desire to read good African-American literature in her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. I sorted through a few different books to find this title and am really pleased with this work.
Not only did I enjoy "hearing" the speech of these characters, but I was fully enthralled with what would happen next. I found myself hanging at each page turn to discover what would happen to Tea Cake. Janie seems like a real person to me and the development of her own maturity and satisfaction with life and coping with the "lemons" she is given seems true to life.
I also appreciate the fact that an author took a chance on her audience and allowed a terrible and tragic thing to happen without trying to answer all the "what then's" that arise in a reader's mind. A lot of the wonderment is what makes the book a success. If a writer gives all the answers, it can distort the "reality" a reader has created through her own interpretation of the book.
Although there were some instances of what could be termed "indecent" as we read portions of Janie's love life, it doesn't come across as vulgar or titillating. It's kind of a fact and an aspect of the book that doesn't seem wrong or out of step. In this case, it has landed itself on the list for book selection option for February.