February 25th, 2025

Book talk for February 25. What's everyone reading?

For Black History Month, I read Toni Morrison's Beloved, which may be the closest thing we have to a Great American Novel.

Set in Ohio a few years after the end of American slavery, we meet a Black woman named Sethe. Her mother-in-law died a few years ago, and her two sons have run away from home, so now Sethe lives in her house only with her daughter, Denver, and a trickster ghost. That uncomfortable stasis is upset with the arrival of Paul D, who knew Sethe back when they were both enslaved. Paul D exorcises the ghost and settles in.

Only the ghost comes back, taking the form of a young Black woman and calling herself Beloved.

Going into it, I did not realize this was a literal ghost story. I don't mean the psychological is-it-or-isn't-it ghost you get in some gothic stories. I mean this ghost crawled out of the grave and found herself a house to haunt.

This was not my first time reading Morrison, but I'd missed her best-known work. It is about the horrors of slavery reverberating through generations, so it is not a fun read, but it is a profound read. Beloved is essential reading for understanding America.