In her latest book Home (published by Chatto and Windus), the Nobel Prize-winning author, Toni Morrison intersperses first person memories of her protagonist Frank Money with third person narrative. It is in the first of these chapters that the relevance of Morrison’s work comes to the fore.
At the age of seventeen, Morrison, living amongst the apparel and attitude of institutional racism, conducted a thought experiment, using horses. They’re appreciated for the work they do, for the races they run. But would you want one to sit next to you on a bus, in a cinema; would you want onesleeping with your child?
n her latest book Home (published by Chatto
and Windus), the Nobel Prize-winning author
Toni Morrison intersperses first person
memories of her protagonist Frank Money
with third person narrative. It is in the first
of these chapters that the relevance of Morrison’s
work comes to the fore. At the age of seventeen,
Morrison, living amongst the apparel
and attitude of institutional racism, conducted
a thought experiment, using horses. They’re
appreciated for the work they do, for the races
they run. But would you want one to sit next to
you on a bus, in a cinema; would you want one
sleeping with your child?
Morrison’s work is never comfortable, and
never feels safe; it is difficult not to hear this example
ringing down the years from her days at
college, during segregation, when she writes,
‘I really forgot about the burial. I only remembered
the horses. They were so beautiful. So
brutal. And they stood like men.’
The subjects of the works of Toni Morrison
are very much rooted in history: her most famous
novel Beloved, for which she won the
Pulitzer Prize in 1988, tells the story of Sethe, a
former slave. In Home, we follow Frank Money
as he recovers from the Korean War. Yet these
stories are not isolated in the periods in which
they are set. Just like the ‘chokecherry tree’ on
Sethe’s back (massive scars from her time as a
slave), the issues raised in Morrison’s books are
relevant to the America of today.
Think of the case of Trayvon Martin, the
young man shot dead, unarmed and yet
deemed a suspected criminal by the police.
They failed to contact his relatives and tested
his corpse for drugs before leaving him in a
morgue for days; his murderer was allowed to
go free, only arrested after a national outcry.
It is hard not to think that the US has a way to
go before reaching the promised land of true
equality.
Pain and vulnerability are present throughout
her new work. This isn’t merely a study
of race relations and the African-American
experience. The army is integrated, but ‘an
integrated army is integrated misery. You all
go fight, come back, they treat you like dogs’.
Manhood rears its head: a man on a train has
beaten his wife for coming to his aid when he
was attacked, thus embarrassing him for not
being able to defend either of them. Morrison
writes, ‘she would have to pay for that broken
nose. Over and over again’.
The book sustains a heightened awareness of
the human body, whether through violence being
sustained against it (Frank is shown swinging
a baseball bat into the legs of a flasher), the
‘ooo-so-vulnerable thighs’ of his girlfriend Lily,
or the cars becoming faces. Frank may be recovering
from war in Korea, but Morrison shows
he lives in the battlefield of the 1950s, an imperfect
world today viewed through rose-tinted
spectacles by a far-from-perfect America.
Morrison’s work is never comfortable, and never feels safe; it is difficult not to hear this example ringing down the years from her days at college, during segregation, when she writes,‘I really forgot about the burial. I only rememberedthe horses. They were so beautiful. So brutal. And they stood like men.’
The subjects of the works of Toni Morrisonare very much rooted in history: her most famousnovel Beloved, for which she won thePulitzer Prize in 1988, tells the story of Sethe, a former slave. In Home, we follow Frank Money as he recovers from the Korean War. Yet these stories are not isolated in the periods in which they are set. Just like the ‘chokecherry tree’ on Sethe’s back (massive scars from her time as a slave), the issues raised in Morrison’s books are relevant to the America of today.
Think of the case of Trayvon Martin, the young man shot dead, unarmed and yet deemed a suspected criminal by the police.They failed to contact his relatives and tested his corpse for drugs before leaving him in a morgue for days; his murderer was allowed to go free, only arrested after a national outcry. It is hard not to think that the US has a way to go before reaching the promised land of true equality.
Pain and vulnerability are present throughout her new work. This isn’t merely a study of race relations and the African-American experience. The army is integrated, but ‘an integrated army is integrated misery. You all go fight, come back, they treat you like dogs’.
Manhood rears its head: a man on a train has beaten his wife for coming to his aid when he was attacked, thus embarrassing him for not being able to defend either of them. Morrison writes, ‘she would have to pay for that broken nose. Over and over again’.
The book sustains a heightened awareness ofthe human body, whether through violence being sustained against it (Frank is shown swinging a baseball bat into the legs of a flasher), the ‘ooo-so-vulnerable thighs’ of his girlfriend Lily, or the cars becoming faces. Frank may be recovering from war in Korea, but Morrison shows he lives in the battlefield of the 1950s, an imperfect world today viewed through rose-tinted spectacles by a far-from-perfect America.
