Although Toni Morrison and James Baldwin were suggested authors for this month, several Book Club members chose other well-known American writers.
LESLEY: The Colour Purple by Alice Walker
Published in 1983, the book is written as a series of letters, firstly from Celie to God and later between Celie and her sister Nettie. Through the letters she describes the pain and the struggles of her life, the segregation she and other coloured folk have to endure and the abuse of power, among many themes.
While it was disturbing to read, Leslie found it very worthwhile.
JULIA: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
This is the author’s first novel, set in 1941 in their home town in Ohio.
The story is of a 12 year old African-American girl who regards herself as ugly because of her dark skin. She prays every night for blue eyes like her white school fellows. Her very unstable, sad and violent home life tells a very disturbing story.
JOAN: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beloved, the first book in a trilogy, won The Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and is a mixture of magical realism and historical fiction. Set after the American Civil War, it tells the story of a former slave whose home is haunted by a spiteful spirit. It is based on the true story of an escaped slave who fled from Kentucky only to be recaptured. She then killed her own children so that they would not be returned to slavery, but be always free.
Joan found it difficult to read, but it did have a happy ending.
PAT: God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
Pat was relieved that it was a short book, as the subject matter was very harrowing. A light-skinned black woman gives birth to a blue black child. The child is unloved and all but ignored. The trauma of her upbringing shapes her life as an adult.
ROSEMARY: Home by Toni Morrison
An African-American veteran from the Korean War, suffering from PTSD, returns home to find his sister needs his help. He has to look past his problems and take his medically abused sister back to their home town, a place he had hated all his life.
The situations were so extreme that Rosemary found the story ended very abruptly, and many aspects could have been further explored.
PAMELA: The Unvanquished by William Faulkner
Published in 1938, the book is set towards the end of the Civil War and the story is told through linked and amusing short stories.
KRIS: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
The story is set in 1930 America, beginning with the suicide of an Insurance Agent. Jumping off a building, while attempting to fly, he lands in front of a pregnant young negro woman called Ruth. She is immediately taken to a nearby hospital to give birth, the first negro baby to be born there.
The young boy is brought up by his father to revere the white world. As he gets older he tries to escape his domineering father.
Kris was unable to finish the book, because she disliked the characters so much and found the book difficult and depressing to read.
Judy A: Sula by Toni Morrison
Off all the books by this author that Judy has read, she describes this one as the easiest, the most enjoyable and there’s not a word wasted. It tells of the friendship between two black women who live in a mostly black neighbourhood in the hills above a mainly white, wealthier community. It charts their friendship from childhood and the intense bond they have even though they have very different personalities and come from radically different households.
VAL: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Val described the book as being very strange, she was intrigued by it, but didn’t really enjoy it.
The author had been captured during the war and spent time in Dresden. The title comes the building where prisoners were kept and were safe from the bombing. So the story is partly autobiographical, and certainly anti-war and also anti-Christ. It is crude, gruesome, sexually explicit but also has humour that is very black but funny. The author has a very clear style of writing, although the story line is very complicated.
CONNIE: If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
The story has a happy beginning with a young black couple living in Harlem in New York. When he is falsely accused of rape by a hate-mongering white policeman, their families try to find out the truth. Their situation was hopeless as they battled against racial prejudice and systemic injustice.
The story was hard to read because it was so sad, and so powerful that it stayed with you long after finishing.
ED:
She also read the book and mentioned that it had been made into a film in 2018.
Jo: W is for Wasted by Sue Grafton
The author was born in the USA in 1940 and is best known for her ‘alphabet series’ of books featuring a private investigator Kinsey Millhone. Jo reckons they are all great stories, but unfortunately the author died in 2017 before she could begin writing her final book, Z is for Zero.
JUDY De La T: The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power
The book is a memoir of this remarkable woman’s life so far. She was born in Ireland but emigrated to USA as a young child. Her motto was “what can one person do”. She has been very involved in human rights issues and genocide, particularly in Bosnia. During the Obama Presidency she was US Ambassador to the United Nations among her many achievements.
Judy described her as a very forthright and domineering person, the book was well written and very interesting.
TAM: The House Next Door by James Patterson
The book has 3 short stories, each one written by Patterson and a different co-author and involving a different crime. Not having read anything by this author before, Tam really enjoyed the book.
JUDY J: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Written in 1876, this well-known book tells of the adventures of Tom and his friends during one hot summer. He witnesses a murder, runs away to be a pirate, attends his own funeral, rescues an innocent man from the gallows, searches for treasure in a haunted house and discovers a box of gold. The author Mark Twain also has many of these adventures as a young boy before becoming a journalist and later a writer.
An enjoyable read and certainly a book of its time.
