An official Oprah Winfrey’s “The Books That Help Me Through” selectionWith this brilliantly imagined New York Times bestselling novel, Toni Morrison transfigures the coming-of-age story as audaciously as Saul Bellow or Gabriel García Márquez. Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, … at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. As Morrison follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, she introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized Black world.
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Toni Morrison sure can build a character! Pilate is, at the same time, odd and lovable. Morrison’s characters stay with me long after I have finished the book.
Recommend.
I can’t really add anything to the numerous reviews of this book, other than to say it is well worth a read. Beautiful, evocative writing sets this sweeping novel apart. I didn’t like the central character Milkman (I preferred the women characters to the men characters throughout) but this didn’t distract from the thought-proking, …
This book was given to me at 17 when I said I wanted to be a writer. I’ve read it several times and it is perhaps one of my favorite books, and why I write the way I do. I won’t give too much away, but I can say that it is a page-turner and everyone who I’ve ever recommended to has loved it.
Confession time: I never read Toni Morrison. So feeling a tad guilty, I started with Song of Solomon, published in 1977. Morrison, who passed away in 2019, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for her novel Beloved. She was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993.
Song of Solomon chronicles Milkman Dead, a Black man born in 1931. …
I have a question.
Has there been a well-regarded or lauded author you keep trying out as a reader but have never connected with their books?
Toni Morrison is my answer to that question. I have attempted several of her books (Jazz, Paradise, and Love) over the years but have never truly connected with them. I know those prior sentences would …
One of the greatest novels ever written. Lyrical and powerful.
Beautifully written.
Toni Morrison’S Song of Solomon is a long tale that covers nearly a one hundred years of American history and its affects on a single family. This is a slow, dense novel and rich with fantasy, fable, song and allegory. I heard Toni Morrison speak about this book in an interview with Junot Diaz. Morrison said that if you choose to bring in an …
A quest for manhood, for wealth, for indepence, for strength: which becomes something else entirely, the search for a name.
It’s probably not appropriate to call a book about such dark events and topics “lovely,” but there it is.
Recommended.
What a fantastic book. when you finish reading this book you will want to read it again. It is filled with for many themes you will never run out of things to talk about.
The brilliance of Toni Morrison shines in this magical coming-of-age story. Milkman’s personal journey shares characteristics with Odysseus (Homer’s Odyssey) in the pursuit of the metaphorical “home” – the origin story and one’s reason for being.
This is one of Toni Morrison’s earlier books. The main character, Milkman Dead seems to be in a constant search of his manhood and his place in life, yet he doesn’t get far from home and his sisters. The story is good but doesn’t go anyway. The characters don’t grow and the ending isn’t satisfactory.
This is Toni Morrison at her best. She is writing about the belief system she was raised in, in the magical realism style that is indicative of a truly gifted writer. Her characters are compelling and the story wraps the characters in a truth that is specific to her as well as to America. Toni Morrison is one of the stars of American letters …
With the publication of her third novel Song of Solomon in 1977, Morrison established herself as one of the preeminent writers of her time. The book was her first to earn widespread commercial success, and it also won Morrison her first major literary achievement, the National Book Critics Circle Award. Song of Solomon is a grand and sweeping …