Song of Solomon

This list could be full of Toni Morrison novels and be no worse for it.

I’d argue that the late writer is the finest we’ve ever had on the topics of grief, loss, and ancestry—especially from the Black American perspective. One of my favorite examples is Song of Solomon, a mesmerizing journey through what it takes to craft an identity in the midst of racism and the ruptures it creates in our lives.

Morrison's singular prose is pure magic as it weaves a tale of the enduring power of love. A literary masterpiece.

Song of Solomon begins with insurance agent Robert Smith perched atop No Mercy Hospital. He wears wide blue silk wings and has promised to fly away at 3 p.m.

Pilate Dead, in a knitted navy cap and blanket, sings to him and the small crowd gathering, “Sugarman cut cross the sky/Sugarman gone home.” There is more to this perfect beginning: red velvet rose petals in snow, a child called Guitar, a pregnant, unloved woman whose son, nicknamed Milkman, is born upon Smith’s leap into the air.

Milkman, who grows without love or soul, reverses the Great Migration, traveling north to… show more.

Song of Solomon is the book that made me fall in love with writing.

I have read it many times throughout my life, and each time I do, I come away with new insights and a sense of awe at the masterful storytelling. The hero of this journey is Milkman Dead, a Black man living in Detroit, Michigan during the Harlem Renaissance and early Civil Rights movement.

He becomes both the hero and the anti-hero as he embarks on a journey to the South to find his inheritance and the truth about his family. One of my favorite parts about… show more.

Okay, I know this novel might not seem like the most likely pick for a list of books about addiction and recovery, but hang with me for a second.

Recovery often demands an addict’s ability to take flight or free themselves from a painful social or family history.

One of the many things I love about Song of Solomon is how Morrison gives her characters the ability to literally and symbolically fly away from their specific hardships (which I am in no way comparing to addiction).

The character Milkman closes the entire book with the line, “If you surrendered to… show more.

You don’t have to choose what you like most about reading when you read Morrison because she has it all. Stirring plots, elegant language, realistic and gorgeously full characters. Song of Solomon, set in a fictional Michigan town, begins with a death but tells the story of the life of Macon Dead III, from the 1930s to the 1960s. It’s been called “The Great American Novel” and it is. It’s hard sometimes for a writer or an avid reader to get the feeling of getting lost in a book because, being so familiar with the structure of a novel… show more.

This book was probably my first exposure to the magical realism genre when I was in High School. Toni Morrison, a friend of my English teacher while they were both at nearby Rutgers, donated a class set to my classroom. It was one of the few times I remembered having an actual fresh new book that wasn’t scribbled in or torn up from school. The book opens with a man attempting to fly by jumping off a roof as a community watches. It is written in this fluid, poetic way that just blew my high schooler mind. I wasn’t even… show more.

I first read Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison when I was studying abroad in the UK, so this book found me when I was beginning to think, more deeply ever, about what it means to be both black and American. This is a story about a search for hidden gold that, instead, uncovers a hidden family history. It’s a perfect novel.