Hardcover reprint of the acclaimed, and now virtually canonized 1987 novel. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

``Mixed with the lyric beauty of the writing, the fury in Morrison's . . . book is almost palpable,'' asserted PW of this Pulitzer Prize-winning ``haunting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath'' set in rural Ohio in the wake of the Civil War. The ``brilliantly conceived story . . . should not be missed.'' (September) From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Morrison's prize-winning, masterly, and disturbing novel Beloved should be an essential part of every library in every format. The story of the escaped slave Sethe and the past that literally and figuratively haunts her is rightfully still vivid, and, in Morrison's controlled reading, the words and images linger powerfully in our mind's eye. The novel was both well researched and imaginatively constructed to show the horrors and costs of both slavery and freedom for these characters who are by turns unforgettable, tragic, and mystical. The library packaging in CD format will allow libraries to enhance their collections or replace the original 20-year-old cassette version. Highly recommended.-Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo, NY Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Toni Morrison's fifth novel, Beloved, is the story of the life and loves of Sethe, an escaped slave who had preferred the risk of death to slavery for both herself and her children. Readers who know Morrison's fiction will find familiar themes-the struggle for identity, the all-consuming demands of love, the inescapable presence of the past-explored in a lyric style that combines realistic detail with folktale, legend, and myth. The technique invites almost inevitable comparison with Morrison's masterpiece, Song of Solomon (1977), and indeed there are numerous haunting parallels between Sethe's household and that of Pilate Dead that may illustrate a weakness in this latest novel. The fragile equilibrium between reality and myth so carefully sustained in Song of Solomon is less successful in Beloved, and, as a result, Sethe and her family are less real, less flesh-and-blood than the Deads. And the continual employment of flashbacks in the latter novel occasionally leads to confusion. These criticisms, however, are relatively minor; Song of Solomon is a great novel; Beloved, a very good one. Morrison is one of a handful of contemporary novelists whose work will, in this reviewer's judgment, stand the test of time. For academic, secondary school, and public libraries.-C.E. Davis, University of North Carolina at Greensboro From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Toni Morrison is one of today's leading novelists, as well as a writer whose African American identity has helped shape her impressive literary contributions. As Jean Strouse, who wrote a Newsweek cover story about her, says, "Morrison hates it when people say she is not a "black writer."' "Of course I'm a black writer. That's like saying Dostoevski's not a Russian writer. They mean I'm not just a black writer, but categories like black writer, woman writer, and Latin American writer aren't marginal anymore. We have to acknowledge that the thing we call "literature' is pluralistic now, just as society ought to be."

Toni Morrison's novels show a steady progression not only in artistic skill but also in the range and scope of her subjects and settings. The first three take place in African American communities in dominantly white Lorain, Ohio, where Toni Morrison, as Chloe Anthony Wofford, grew up as a member of a stable family of six headed by a father who often worked three jobs simultaneously in order to support his family during the Depression years. She graduated from Howard University and received a master's degree from Cornell University with her thesis on the theme of suicide in modern literature. She teaches writing at Princeton University.

Her first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), is an experimental work that begins haltingly with the Dick-and-Jane language of a grade school primer and slowly develops into a poetically tragic story of a little African American girl, and, by extension, the tragedy of racism, sexual violence, and black self-hatred. Her second novel, Sula (1973), is the story of two women whose deep early friendship is severely tested when one of them returns after a 10-year absence as "a classic type of evil force" to disrupt the community. Song of Solomon (1977) has as central characters a young man named Milkman and his nemesis, Guitar, whose fates are as inextricably linked as those of the young women in Sula. Song of Solomon is a thoughtful work rich in symbols and mythical in its implications as it portrays the complicated hidden histories of African Americans. Yet the book is readable enough to have been chosen a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and as winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for 1977. In Tar Baby (1981) Morrison extends her range to an island in the Caribbean and for the first time allows white characters to play prominent roles along with the black. Tar Baby is essentially a novel of ideas, but the ideas again are conveyed along with a fast-moving narrative with credible characters. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987), a brilliant novel about a fugitive slave woman who murders her infant, Beloved, so that the child will not grow up to become a slave. Her most recent novel, Jazz (1990), continues her powerful explorations of African American communities.

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Editor's Note	p. vii
Introduction	p. 1
Haunted by Their Nightmares	p. 5
Toni Morrison's Beloved	p. 11
A Different Remembering: Memory, History and Meaning in Toni Morrison's Beloved	p. 17
Beloved and the New Apocalypse	p. 27
Fleshly Ghosts and Ghostly Flesh: The Word and the Body in Beloved	p. 45
Beloved: A Womanist Neo-Slave Narrative; or Multivocal Remembrances of Things Past	p. 57
Maternal Bonds as Devourers of Women's Individuation in Toni Morrison's Beloved	p. 69
The Ghosts of Slavery: Historical Recovery in Toni Morrison's Beloved	p. 79
Unspeakable Things Unspoken: Ghosts and Memories in Beloved	p. 97
Daughters Signifyin(g) History: The Example of Toni Morrison's Beloved	p. 115
Beloved: Toni Morrison's Post-Apocalyptic Novel	p. 141
Toni Morrison's Beloved: History, "Rememory," and a "Clamor for a Kiss"	p. 155
Ghosts of Liberalism: Morrison's Beloved and the Moynihan Report	p. 177
Figurations of Rape and the Supernatural in Beloved	p. 193
Chronology	p. 207
Contributors	p. 209
Bibliography	p. 211
Acknowledgments	p. 213
Index	p. 215

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