Ann duCille's probing new study spanning the period from 1853 to 1948 explores the nascence of literary activity among black women in the 1890s and goes on to investigate the cultural climate which led some of the most prominent to use the marriage convention as a means of exploring wider questions of human social relations, sexuality, and female subjectivity. The Coupling Convention goes beyond the period study to offer a new paradigm for reading black women's fiction.