Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler

Morris’s scrupulously footnoted biography of Butler is a delight to read since its narrative is written in such clear and accessible prose. It covers not only Butler’s life and times, but also an analysis of her work and Morris’s own personal encounters with it as a young person and then as a scholar. The title Positive Obsession comes from Butler’s own description of how she overcame the difficulties in her life caused by poverty, racism, neurodivergence, and poor health by obsessively writing. It is not by any means a Horatio Alger rags to riches tale. Butler’s struggles in life, even when she overcame them, were a constant in her life from early poverty through her success and recognition until her death at age fifty-eight show more in 2006.

Morris also examines each of Butler’s novels and series of novels and their themes, especially the human contradiction between our species cleverness and our sorting of others into a hierarchy. Morris quotes from one of Butler’s notes from her papers archived in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. "sadly (or not) we are a hierarchical species. We will seek and find or make difference between ourselves and grade these differences worst, worse, bad, fair, good, better, best. Others are less to the degree that they differ and/or are weaker."

In Adulthood Rites, the second book in her Xenogenesis series the alien race Oankali characterize humanity’s greatest flaw as a species to be “Intelligence at the service of hierarchical behavior.” This is why humans are plagued by self-induced conflicts that lead to discrimination, conflicts, wars and genocide. show less

I have read and own all of Octavia Butler's novels, her short story collection, and an illustrated essay. This biography was very interesting to me, as Morris really delves into what inspired each of her works and the greater meaning behind her plots and ideas. I also enjoyed getting to know this author better, and all the things she had to overcome and yet still eventually find success as a writer. She was a bit ahead of her time. I wish I could have met her.

The first book I read of hers was Clay's Ark. I found it at Powell's City of Books, back in the early 80s when I was probably in junior high. Since YA wasn't really a thing back then, I had moved right from chapter books to novels written for adults. I remember being attracted to show more the cover, with a crashed rocket and a single standing astronaut.

Despite the book's brutality, I was blown away by the story. It was unlike anything I had ever read before. I sought out the rest of the Patternist series (except Survivor), then read Kindred, and all the others as they were published. My parents, knowing that I was a fan, ran across a tattered copy of Survivor in a used book store and bought it for me, for something like $3. (it was going for hundreds of dollars on ebay). Survivor was the last one I acquired and read. I still have all the paperbacks all these years later. And now I will have to reread them with the knowledge acquired from this biography. show less

Overall, this was good and I enjoyed reading about Octavia's life. I have actually never read an Octavia Butler book, interestingly enough. But now I want to. She seemed very smart and sad to see her life was cut short. The author did talk a lot about her books and almost summarized them, which I found myself glossing over. I get that it was important to the story of how Octavia thought and oddly predicted the future - really, just based on research and how the same things happen in cycles. But if I wanted a synopsis of her books, I could find that online. I wish there was a little bit less of that, just enough to tie in to how she was thinking, but not as much of a deep dive. But I can also see how that would be a positive for some show more people. Some of her life was glossed over a bit. Like her mom dying was a passing mention. I would've been more interested to find out more about her life. And I would LOVE to get my hands on some of our journals and just sit and read those. I'm not faulting the author for that, I'm sure that would be a whole thing to publish those. But it sounds like she journaled a lot and about the world and what she observed and what she researched and I'd love some of that inner workings. There was one page in the pictures in the book. (I did an immersive read with the audiobook and the physical book.) Overall, it was enjoyable and I do want to read some of her books now. show less

A must read for anyone who has ready anything by Octavia Butler. Now I must re-read all her works!