In this startling group memoir, four friends-black and white, gay and
straight, immigrant and American-born-use Toni Morrison's novels as a
springboard for intimate and revealing conversations about the
problems of everyday racism and living whole in times of uncertainty.
Tackling everything from first love and Soul Train to police
brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, the authors take up
what it means to read challenging literature collaboratively and to
learn in public as an act of individual reckoning and social
resistance.
Framing their book
club around collective secrets, the group bears witness to how
Morrison's works and words can propel us forward while we sit with
uncomfortable questions about race, gender, and identity. How do we
make space for black vulnerability in the face of white supremacy and
internalized self-loathing? How do historical novels speak to us now
about the delicate seams that hold black minds and bodies together?
This slim and
brilliant confessional offers a radical vision for book clubs as
sites of self-discovery and communal healing. The Toni Morrison
Book Club insists that we find ourselves in fiction and think of
Morrison as a spiritual guide to our most difficult thoughts and
ideas about American literature and life.