In Appreciation of Toni Morrison

February 18, 1931 — August 5, 2019

Image by tookapic from Pixabay

I was first introduced to Toni Morrison’s work in a college class called “Faulkner, O’Connor, and Morrison.” I think this was fall of my senior year, so this would have been in 1990. What I do know is that I still consider this class one of the most pivotal courses I ever took. I loved it and I loved my professor, one of several greats in our English department.

Faulkner didn’t do much for me. I couldn’t stand him and his long-winded narrative, to tell you the truth. I was thrilled when we moved on to Flannery O’Connor. Now she was the real deal. I loved her immediately, devoured everything she wrote, and still count her among my very favorite authors.

And then there was Toni Morrison. In that class we read The Bluest Eye, her first novel; Sula; Tar Baby; and Beloved which had just won the Pulitzer Prize a year prior. A few years later, in 1993, Toni Morrison would become the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature. It’s something special to realize you’re reading a classic writer in real time.

Reading Toni Morrison was an experience. A majority of the students in our class — and indeed, at the private, liberal arts, Catholic college in suburban Philadelphia that I attended — were white. There were some racial tensions happening on campus during that…