Shirley A. Stave

Alice Knox Eaton

Maxine Lavon Montgomery

Contributions by Alice Knox Eaton, Mar Gallego, Maxine Lavon Montgomery, Evelyn Jaffe Schreiber, Shirley A. Stave, Justine Tally, Susana Vega-González, and Anissa Wardi In her eleventh novel, God Help the Child, Toni Morrison returned to several of the signature themes explored in her previous work: pernicious beauty standards for women, particularly African American women; mother-child relationships; racism and colorism; and child sexual abuse. God Help the Child, published in 2015, is set in the contemporary period, unlike all of her previous novels. The contemporary setting is ultimately incidental to the project of the novel, however; as with Morrison’s other work, the story takes on mythic qualities, and the larger-than-life themes lend themselves to allegorical and symbolic readings that resonate in light of both contemporary and historical issues. New Critical Essays on Toni Morrison's “God Help the Child”: Race, Culture, and History, a collection of eight essays by both seasoned Morrison scholars as well as new and rising scholars, takes on the novel in a nuanced and insightful analysis, interpreting it in relation to Morrison’s earlier work as well as locating it within ongoing debates in literary and other academic disciplines engaged with African American literature. The volume is divided into three sections. The first focuses on trauma—both the pain and suffering caused by neglect and abuse, as well as healing and understanding. The second section considers narrative choices, concentrating on experimentation and reader engagement. The third section turns a comparative eye to Morrison's fictional canon, from her debut work of fiction, The Bluest Eye, until the present. These essays build on previous studies of Morrison’s novels and deepen readers’ understanding of both her last novel and her larger literary output.

Race, Culture, and History

New Critical Essays on Toni Morrison's God Help the Child

Nancy Campbell

Allen Scarboro

This study of Ravenwood, the largest open coven in the United States, is the only ethnography of a witches' commune that has been done with the consent and support of the witches themselves, and it is a major contribution to Wiccan studies.

A Contemporary American Coven

Living Witchcraft

This book explores the Pagan-Christian conflict underlying Thomas Hardy's Wessex novels, establishing connections with the political and economic structure of Victorian England and focusing primarily on the social construction of gender at this transitional time.

Nature, Culture, and Women in Thomas Hardy's Fiction

The Decline of the Goddess

"This collection of essays treats Gloria Naylor's novels Mama Day and Bailey's Cafe, recognized by scholars and critics as her most significant works. Long understood to be a major African-American woman writer, Gloria Naylor is finally gaining recognition as a contemporary American writer who needs no qualifiers or adjectives before her name. One of the few critical studies of her work, this text represents the work of a group of scholars who are looking seriously and carefully at Naylor, attempting to determine her place, not within an intellectual tradition, but rather within several traditions."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Strategy and Technique, Magic and Myth

Gloria Naylor

This collection of essays critically interrogates Toni Morrison's use of the Bible in her novels, examining the ways in which the author plays on the original text to raise issues of spirituality as it affects race, gender, and class. Ideal for courses on Morrison or on explorations of the intersection of religion and literature, this collection treats its topic with sophistication, considering «religion» in its broadest possible sense, and examining syncretic theologies as well as mainstream religions in its attempt to locate Morrison's work in a spiritual-theological nexus.

Contested Intertextualities

Toni Morrison and the Bible

Justine Tally

Toni Morrison’s ninth novel, A Mercy, has been received with much acclaim by both the critical and lay reading public. Hailed as her best novel after the award-winning Beloved, most critics to date have concentrated on its setting in the late seventeenth century, a time in which, according to the author herself, slavery was “pre-racial,” a time before the “Terrible Transformation” irrevocably linked slavery to skin-color or “race.” Though a slender, easy to read novel, A Mercy is in fact a richly-layered text, full of multiple meanings and possibilities, a work of art that has only just begun to be “mined” for its critical import. The present volume is the first to deal with these possibilities, presenting a variety of critical approaches that include narrative theory, the eco-critical, the geographical, the allegorical, the Miltonian, the feminist, the metaphorical, and the Lacanian. As such, not only is it conceived to enrich the work of Morrison scholars and students, but also to illuminate the use of critical theory in elucidating a complex literary text. A Mercy clamors for close reading and thoughtful interrogation and promises to reward the perceptive reader.

Shirley A. Stave

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