TONI MORRISON
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (1931-2019) was born and raised in Lorain, Ohio. She went to Howard University in Washington DC for an undergraduate degree, then Cornell University for her M.A. Almost a decade passed (marriage, children, divorce) before she became the first female black editor at Random House in 1967. In 1970 she published The Bluest Eye, a signal debut, and by 1975 her writing career moved her out of editing and into a rise to one of the premier novelists in the United States. In 1987 she published Beloved, her epic ghost story in a sense, which earned her financial security, a nationwide bestseller for half a year. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 for her lifetime of work to date. She was the first black woman of any nation to win the prize. The eminence of being recognized as a world writer did not stop or slow down her writing or teaching (fellowships, lectureships, as befit her position). She died August 5, 2019, at 88 years.
Love
Love
A spellbinding symphony of passion and hatred, power and perversity, color and class that spans three generations of black women in a fading beach town.
In life, Bill Cosey enjoyed the affections of many women, who would do almost anything to gain his favor. In death his hold on them may be even stronger. Wife, daughter, granddaughter, employee, mistress: As Morrison’s protagonists stake their furious claim on Cosey’s memory and estate, using everything from intrigue to outright violence, she creates a work that is shrewd, funny, erotic, and heartwrenching.
“A marvelous work, which enlarges our conception not only of love but of racial politics.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review