All Articles Tagged "fiction"
Editor’s Picks: Toni Morrison’s Top 5 Books That You Should Read ASAP
Source: sparecandy.com
For most of my life I’ve been more of a heavy magazine reader as opposed to a book club chick. Blame it on the fact that as a journalism major I spent way too much time in college and even before then trying to finish assigned readings. Therefore, I always valued something I could flip through fast. But now that I’m done with school (for now at least), and also since I live in NYC and have to ride the train for a long time, I’ve found myself diving into a good book more and more these days. One of my favorite authors just happens to be Toni Morrison, and I’ve made it a mission to try and read all of her books (as I’ve made it a mission to collect all of Spike Lee’s movies). I’m almost done! But before I’m fully complete with that mission, I thought I would share five of my favorite novels by the Pulitzer Prize winner and encourage you to check them out and/or share with your book clubs. Check it.
Sula
I’m a huge fan of powerful female figures in literature that are feared rather than fearful. Why? I’m just weird like that. But you get a character like that in this pretty epic book about secrets, family, friendship and defiance. The individual who the book is named after is raised by an eccentric grandmother and promiscuous mother in a small, once slave-owned town called The Bottom. And after a host of tragedies fall upon her childhood, she grows up and leaves to get an education. But when she comes back, she’s older, cocky and sexually free at a time when people weren’t supposed to be (the 1930-40s), and she turns the town on its head.
Jazz
When the very married Joe Trace has an affair with a very young woman and in a blind rage, shoots her after she’s caught stepping out on him, he opens a can of worms and drama that only Ms. Morrison could put together on paper. Not only does his wife seek revenge on the dead girl, but she also seeks to find understanding and friendship with her enemy’s aunt. Jazz music is the soundtrack of the novel (which makes sense since it’s set in Harlem in the roaring 20s) and sometimes drives the actions of some of the characters in the story. As in many of her novels, Morrison’s main characters come off crazy as all hell on paper, but they’ve got emotional scars and societal pressures on them that make them that way. Deep stuff.
The Bluest Eye
Man, The Bluest Eye is just one of those novels that breaks your heart. Okay, so I know that doesn’t make you all that excited to check the book out, but it’s so moving and powerful, you can get over the sad aspects. It’s actually Morrison’s first novel, and it examines how folks look at beauty depending on where they are class wise, as well as racially. The protagonist, a young girl named Pecola, hopes and prays that one day she will wake up with blue eyes and that it will possibly change the way she is looked at by her family and the way she is treated by the world around her. Sadly, it never happens, and she endures enough hardships in one year that would break anybody down in one day. I know it sounds kind of depressing, but I assure you, it’s such a gripping read.
Love
Not as huge in notoriety as some of her other works (Beloved, Song of Solomon), Love is a pretty deep novel about two women and the man that tore them apart. Not internally, but tore the two women apart from one another. Said man is late hotel owner Bill Cosey, and the women at odds are his granddaughter and his widow. After his death, they’re like an all-female version of War of Roses, with the two women living together in the man’s decaying mansion waiting for the other to die or to just get up and leave. But despite their coldness to one another, both women once had an undeniable bond before marriage and unexpected adulthood changed them. I won’t tell you how though…I love this crazy book.
Beloved
When I first read this book for an AP class in high school, I had no idea what was going on once I finished it. People who weren’t supposed to be living were, crazed spirits were turning home of character Sethe upside down, and in the end, the book went over my head. But when I read it over again in college, I was blown away by the depth of the story. It wasn’t just about a woman who hurt her children to protect them and was paying for it, it was also about the psychological effects of slavery on everyone who appeared in the story. Though she was a free slave, Sethe and her family couldn’t outrun her past and the dark history of slavery. I can see why it was named the best fiction book of the past 25 years in 2006 by New York Times critics and is a Pulitzer Prize Winner.
These are just my picks. But what are your favorite Toni Morrison books?
More on Madame Noire!
- What Happened To These Child Stars?
- Tell ‘Em Why You’re Mad: Ladies, Are We Way Too Hard on Each Other?
- Ask a Very Smart Brotha Live: Sleepy Tummys and Office Romances
- White Female Rapper: New Wave in Hip Hop or Pure Minstrelsy?
- What You Can And Can’t Fix About Your Sex Life’
- Hair-Raising!: Real Life Hair Horror Stories
- Six Blacks Who Made Forbes’ Billionaire List
- She’s Trying to Erykah Badu Me: 7 Men Whose Style Changed For Their Lady
Judge Dismisses ‘The Help’ Lawsuit
(TheLoop21) — In another win for Katherine Stockett, a judge dismissed a case by Ablene Cooper, who claimed that The Help’s Aibileen (played by actress Viola Davis) was based on her likeness without her permission. Judge Tomie Green dismissed the $75,000 case earlier today because the “one-year statute of limitations had elapsed between when Stockett gave Cooper a copy of the book and when the lawsuit was filed,” says the Hollywood Reporter.
Tayari Jones: Author of ‘Silver Sparrow’ Strikes Gold
(The Root) — With the publication of her third novel, Silver Sparrow, things are happening to author Tayari Jones that rarely happen to writers, especially writers who are women. And these things that are happening to Tayari Jones almost never happen to writers who are African-American women. Even before Silver Sparrow was bound and ready to be bought, her publishing company, Algonquin Books, hosted a series of luncheons, filled the room with booksellers and brought in just one author — Jones — to meet the people who decide which books to place on prominent display, recommend to readers and sell. Also unheard of in publishing: Algonquin then sent Jones on a tour of not three, not 10, not 20 — but 40 cities around the country.
Literary Journey Through 5 of The Biggest Problems Facing Black America
To be black in America is to bear witness to a steady stream of damning news items. It can be tiresome, and too, confusing. Which statistics to trust? Which experts have an agenda? And what, oh what, can be done about any of it? Today The Atlanta Post takes a break from fact to look at fiction which grapples with five of the most pressing issues facing the African-American community. The stories may be made up but, you’ll immediately recognize the truth in these tales.
Health
Time will tell if the healthcare reforms pushed through last year improves things for African-Americans. As it stands blacks are besieged by chronic problems that erode quality of life and shorten their spans. For a fictional look at how destabilizing illness can be for an individual and their family consider Bebe Moore Campbell’s “72 Hour Hold”. The late author deals with a mental rather than physical malady, bi-polar disorder, elaborating on the difficulty of securing proper treatment. It is a story rooted in autobiography, for this is the condition the author’s daughter, actress Maia Campbell, struggles with. For another story about a life shaped by disease take a look at Pearl Cleage’s “What Looks Like Crazy on An Ordinary Day”. The story follows Ava Johnson who is learning to live with HIV.
The Story of O: A Presidential Novel
(The Guardian) — One route through the opacity of public fact is political fiction. On Tuesday, Simon & Schuster will publish, in both America and the UK, a book called O: A Presidential Novel, a fictional account of the Obama administration which is credited to “Anonymous”, the nom-de-plume of someone who, according to the publisher’s website, “has been in the room with Obama and wishes to remain anonymous”. This project has an obvious affinity with a novel published during the first term of the previous Democrat to occupy the White House: Primary Colors, released by Random House in January 1996, was also initially attributed to “Anonymous” but later revealed to be the work of the political journalist Joe Klein.
An African Girl’s Tale Told By A London Bloke
“Page Flipping” is Madame Noire‘s weekly column on books. Stay tuned for more topics, comment or write us at editors@madamenoire.com if you have suggestions!
Any writer will tell you that writing from the perspective of the opposite gender in a convincing manner is quite a task. Chris Cleave, UK author, tacks on race and nationality to that challenge in his latest novel. A Nigerian teenage girl and a 30-something British wife, mother and journalist alternately narrate Little Bee in first person.
