It begins with Hurston's childhood in the Black community of Eatonville, Florida, then covers her education at Howard University where she began as a fiction writer, having two stories published under the guidance of Charles S. Johnson.

[1] The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature says "its factual information is often unreliable, its politics are contradictory, and it barely discusses Hurston's literary career".

[4] Harold Preece, reviewing it in 1943 condemned it as "the tragedy of a gifted, sensitive mind, eaten up by an egotism fed on the patronizing admiration of the dominant world".

[4] Despite its questionable attitude to truth, and its many lacunae, it has been praised for its literary quality; The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature says "passages in Dust Tracks are as engaging as any Hurston wrote".

[2] An excerpt from the book was recited in the film August 28: A Day in the Life of a People, which debuted at the opening of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2016.