Gloria Naylor (1950–2016)

Linden Hills wasn’t black; it was successful. The shining surface of their careers, brass railings, and cars hurt his eyes because it only reflected the bright nothing that was inside of them.

Gloria Naylor's Lindon Hills is somehow a perfect allegory of race, gender, and sexuality within the black community and the power structures put in place to keep the status quo. The premise is simple: friends Willie and Lester—two 20-year-old black men who decide to travel through the glittering show more Linden Hills to scrape enough money together for the holiday season. What they find instead a community rotting from the inside out and the deeply twisted lives that are caught up in all of it in the daunting imagery of Dante's Inferno.

The novel has at times 4 simultaneous storylines running throughout: the present, involving Willie and Lester; the other presents depicting Mr. Nedeed and another with his wife trapped in the basement; and the backstories of the characters Willie and Lester interact with through their journey through Linden Hills.

I absolutely loved the characters Willie and Lester and how who interact with as they descend into Linden Hills. It almost felt a little like a mystery novel at times; the characters revealing subtle clues as to their ills before the great reveal of their "sins". We meet a gay man marrying and making his lover be his best man to get a foot into Linden Hills, a man mourning his conveniently dead wife before he marries another, an alcoholic, burned out priest, a woman who loses all sense of meaning after leaving the warm home of her grandmother and "making it", and a creepy historian who documents every happening of Linden Hills—including the acts of our own Willie and Lester from the past few days without anyone knowing. I kept wondering each chapter who'd I'd see, what cast of characters I'd meet and chip away word by word to see who they really were.

A vivid addition to the novel was the southern gothic elements of that comes alive around Willa Nedeed in her basement. There's major Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre vibes in the calling across the hills of the trapped woman in the basement, the almost supernatural powers of Mr. Nedeed and his control over his own little section of hell. It's full of unnatural shadows and nightmares, dead children shrouded in lace and stiffening by the hour and fires (perhaps) purifying it all. It was exciting. It was something classic in an understandable, modern setting. It was amazing.

And so I really appreciated and enjoyed the ease that the book read in and the pervasiveness of the themes and symbols. For some, it may seem heavy-handed, but I think masking that in a novel such as this is would have been incredibly disingenuous and showed quite apparently the genius of Gloria Naylor. Her work in this story with the interwoven themes of and symbols of black and white, father and son, faces and identity, and material goods and their emptiness was beautiful and complex without being convoluted. It's the perfect allegory for the question of "making it" in a white man's world and a clear thesis against the philosophies of Booker T. Washington. It'll make you think, and I believe that's exactly what Naylor wanted.

"Being white was the furthest thing from his mind, since he spent every waking moment trying to be no color at all." show less

Why, oh, why must I believe everything I read? It sets grotesquely romantic expectations of my reality, causing me to behave like a total idiot in most situations. Case in point: I made the mistake of barreling through this book during my lunch breaks and 15-minute breaks. When I wasn't slumping in my chair desperately attempting to stifle tears, I roamed the halls in a stupor, oblivious to what was going on around me. At one point, when a co-worker said, "Hey, Lindsay! What's up?" I caught show more myself about to mutter, "Uhhhh...rape" (which might have been kind of hilarious, if not without its repercussions).
I turned to this book purposefully after finishing East of Eden because, while it was wonderful as Steinbeck can't help but be, I had about had it with whiny men. I craved women. Strong women, three dimensional women. And I knew Gloria Naylor could deliver. My heart raced the entire time reading these stories, both for the passion and suspense. I went pages barely able to take a breath. I exhaled low moans with Lucielia and Lorraine. It made me wonder how I ever manage to move on--back to work, on to another book, overcoming a formidable challenge. Thank goodness I'm inclined to take fiction as gospel. show less

This book tells the story of the women that live in Brewster Place, a poor black neighborhood. Each chapter tells the story of one woman and they might appear in each other’s chapters. This book is about the strength of black women and the prejudices they face, but also about friendship and solidarity among each other. I must warn that there are a lot of trashy men in this book and I got angry quite a lot.

In the first story we follow Mattie Michael, which was known as a “good girl” show more until she gets pregnant from her one time with a guy named Butch, known to be a womanizer, and is forced to leave her parents’ house. The story tells about Mattie’s struggles and the prejudices she faces as a single mother. This is one of the sweetest and most recurring characters in the book.

The second story is about Etta that is trying to settle down and marry, but her reputation of sleeping with every man follows her; the story of Kiswana Browne is about an heartfelt conversation with her mother where the civil rights movement is addressed and this one is probably my favorite; Ciel has to deal with a husband that keeps leaving her and coming back into her life; Cora Lee has a lot of children and her story is about her struggles raising them while facing the prejudice of other people about her situation; the last story is about Theresa and Lorraine, a lesbian couple struggling with their homophobic neighbors while trying to deal differently with the situation, which causes conflict in their relationship.

At the end there is this dreamlike chapter where there is a display of anger by all of these women. The book starts and ends with a brief description of what Brewster Place is and what it represents, which makes it look a bit magical.

The book is very well constructed and I really liked it, but the chapter of “The Two” was especially hard to read for me because of the homophobic content and the rape scene that happens in it. It was the most graphic and violent chapter and I had some trouble getting through it. I feel like all of the other women had some sort of support, but these lesbian characters are left by themselves and I am not sure how to take that.

I am still curious to try other novels by this author. Linden Hills is a place that kept being mentioned and I know that there is a book with that name so I am curious to see if some of these characters pop up in there. I will just skip “The Men of Brewster Place” since I’ve heard that that is about the perspective of the men in this novel and honestly I don’t care for it because they were terrible and there are no excuses for what they did. show less

Naylor's writing has such gorgeous life to it, and this book is no different. A tapestry of characters and worlds all brought together into one, the book's claim to being "nothing less than a blues tapestry of America" is heartbreakingly true, and showcases Naylor at her best. This is a difficult one to talk about without giving away the novel's secrets, but in a blend of short stories, character sketches, and novel-form told through a multitude of voices, it is utterly worth reading and show more rereading, an experience all its own.

Absolutely recommended. show less