This novel involves several revolving stories related to a place more than a specific set of circumstances of plot. Brewster Place is a sort of government housing project equivalent to Linden Hills, the planned community of a later Gloria Naylor novel. If you read Hidden Figures you already learned about the planned communities of the early 20th century and the ways in which race impacted those developments. If you’ve read Toni Morrison you know how those communities survived white onslaught, developed their own character and quirks, […]
Miranda is having the kind of day best spent in bed.
Like so many other books coming out even this year, this book is an awkward cousin to The Tempest. Miranda is Mama Day, the late-aged healer of the island “Willow Springs” on the border between South Carolina and Georgia. This is a book chock full of characters named for Shakespeare denizens, like Ophelia, Miranda, Cicero, and George. It’s kind of a Caribbean book, but more so has the history and taste of Gullah islands, retaining a lot of its Americanness. The novel is told from three […]