Form Over Fiction

God Help the Child Toni Morrison Toni Morrison, an author that I gladly read twice, thrice, whatever it takes, that I study and annotate and emulate, came out with her highly anticipated novel, God Help the Child. Even with her illustrious presence as author, literary thought leader, Nobel, Pulitzer, et al., this, her eleventh novel,…

Beloved: A Biblical Excavation

Beloved Toni Morrison What more is there to say about Beloved, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel written by Toni Morrison? It tackles the ghostly legacy of slavery. It uses both cultural and biblical mysticism in its narrative. Its prose is lyrical and literally shifts to poetry at some points, notably in part two when the three main…

The Bluest Eye

The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison Wow! My first read of Toni Morrison, and it did not disappoint. It was powerful and weighted–normally I’d brace myself for a read like this before jumping in. So, ignorance is bliss, and I jumped, committing to finishing the book in three days. Subjects addressed in The Bluest Eye…race, class,…

The Known World

The Known World Edward P. Jones Why you have to read this book… Brilliant.…So utterly original that it makes most everything previously written about slavery seem outdated and pedestrian.  It belongs on the shelf with other classics of slavery, like Toni Morrison’s Beloved and William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner. -Atlanta Journal-Constitution One of…

Ghost Writer, Spectre, or Haint

I just finished a great read, Beloved, by Toni Morrison, an even greater author.  The book’s namesake, Beloved, is a ghost, but to say this is a ghost story in the expected sense would be misleading.  It is instead, a story about how the past can stifle or even haunt the present and you, like…