Song Of Solomon

By (author) Morrison Toni
Short description/annotation
Begins in 1930s America with Macon Dead Jr, the son of a wealthy black property owner, who has been brought up to revere the white world. Macon learns about the tyranny of white society from his friend Guitar. So while Guitar joins a terrorist group of poor blacks, Macon goes home to the South, lured by tales of buried family treasure.
Description

‘Song of Solomon…profoundly changed my life’ Marlon James

Macon ‘Milkman’ Dead was born shortly after a neighbourhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly.

In 1930s America Macon learns about the tyranny of white society from his friend Guitar, though he is more concerned with escaping the familial tyranny of his own father. So while Guitar joins a terrorist group Macon goes home to the South, lured by tales of buried family treasure. But his odyssey back home and a deadly confrontation with Guitar leads to the discovery of something infinitely more valuable than gold: his past and the origins of his true self.
‘The story of Milkman Dead and Guitar had me in thrall’ Salman Rushdie, New York Times

BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF BELOVED

Winner of the PEN/Saul Bellow award for achievement in American fiction

Review quote
Toni Morrison makes me believe in God. She makes me believe in a divine being, because luck and genetics don’t seem to come close to explaining her
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The poetry of the language. The vernacular and the rhythms of speech... It''s eavesdropping on a slice of life. You care for every character. You love them, you bleed for them. It''s a masterclass in narrative fiction. It''s a book that not only makes me want to be a better writer, but a better person as well
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Stunningly beautiful... Full of magnificent people... They are still haunting my house. I suspect they will be with me forever
Review quote
Song of Solomon…profoundly changed my life
Review quote
A rhapsodic work... Intricate and inventive
Biographical note
Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. She was the author of many novels, including The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved, Paradise and Love. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize for her fiction and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour, in 2012 by Barack Obama. Toni Morrison died on 5 August 2019 at the age of eighty-eight.
Promotional headline
Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved, Toni Morrison is one of the finest novelists of our times.