The Toni Morrison Book Club

by Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Casssandra Jackson

In this startling group memoir, four friends—black and white, gay and straight, immigrant and American-born—use Toni Morrison’s novels as a springboard for intimate and revealing conversations about the problems of everyday racism and living whole in times of uncertainty. Tackling everything from first love and Soul Train to police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, the authors take up what it means to read challenging literature collaboratively and to learn in public as an act of individual reckoning and social resistance.
 
Framing their book club around collective secrets, the group bears witness to how Morrison’s works and words can propel us forward while we sit with uncomfortable questions about race, gender, and identity. How do we make space for black vulnerability in the face of white supremacy and internalized self-loathing? How do historical novels speak to us now about the delicate seams that hold black minds and bodies together?
 
This slim and brilliant confessional offers a radical vision for book clubs as sites of self-discovery and communal healing. The Toni Morrison Book Club insists that we find ourselves in fiction and think of Morrison as a spiritual guide to our most difficult thoughts and ideas about American literature and life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Books About Books, Audiobook, Essays, Book Club, Race

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 4, 2020

Reviews

[Roxane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting memoir of sorts with four members of a book club who learned a great deal about themselves, each other and what it means to live in the world from different subject positions through the lens of Toni Morrison’s novel. Really interesting conceit and it is quite moving to see these four friends and the emotional generosity they show one another. A thoughtful, different kind of memoir.

[Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

the very best of real

👩🏽Three black women and one white male discuss their experience of blackness in America, of racism and where hope for healing can be found along with a longed for diminishment of white supremacy. Their discussion not only revolves around their thoughts and the recounting of their experiences, but how various novels of Toni Morrison - such as Beloved - shed light and bring comprehension to everything they see and struggle with.

The book is extremely readable, thought provoking, and gut wrenching all at the same time. Exhausting, exhilarating, painful and profound.

I’m listening. I’m listening as much as I can.

👩🏾What’s in this book is the very best and the very hardest of real.

[Anne Bogel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This group memoir has four authors, all English professors and colleagues who came together to read the works of Toni Morrison. The memoir focuses on four of her books: Beloved, The Bluest Eye, A Mercy, and Song of Solomon. Each writer contributes two deeply personal essays about how their life intersects with Morrison's work (or, as they say, how Morrison serves as a catalyst), which means that the reader gets multiple perspectives on each novel.

I read this and the new Zora Neale Hurston collection nearly back-to-back and found this to be a serendipitous pairing; these two books, while written nearly 100 years apart, had a lot to say to each other.

Moving, heartfelt, and intimate—as well as excellent on audio.

[MaryBeth's Bookshelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book blew me away. I went in totally blind and I actually thought it was a fiction book about friends who form a book club that reads only Toni Morrison books. I was way off. This is memoir written by a group of friends that discuss their own stories and how they relate to different books by Toni Morrison. We always say that the reason we read it to walk in another person's shoes and understand their unique experiences. This book allows us to see real life impact and stories that mirror those in Morrison's work. Incredible book!

[Cheryl]

This was my first time reading a "group memoir," although I'd like to think of it as a collection of essays on how Morrison's books encouraged such poignant dialogue within these pages. I read this not too long after reading A Mercy. In that novel, I wrote notes to myself in the margins, like I've done with the various Morrison novels I've read, this time pondering the difference in style and POV. This book responded to some of my margin notes and it also helped me uncover new things about The Bluest Eye. I read The Toni Morrison Book Club wrapped in the Toni Morrison blanket a friend gifted me on my birthday, a blanket that canvases her books and quotes. The authors' personal stories underscore Toni Morrison's novels. They are true stories that showcase the necessity of writers like Toni Morrison, writers who contextualize racialized societies within their art. I smiled when I read about the authors' encounters with Toni Morrison ( her personality and presence so illuminated) and I was saddened that she requested to see the manuscript before it was published, but never had the chance to review it.

[Fareya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part group memoir, part ode to Toni Morrison but mostly a collection of intimate and insightful essays on identity, gender and race, The Toni Morrison Book Club is unlike any memoir I've read before. It's also possibly a very underrated book. I've barely seen it around and I genuinely hope it eventually finds its audience and gets read and talked about by more people.

In this book four friends, (a White man and three Black women) pick four of Toni Morrison's books namely, Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and A Mercy and talk about how Morrison's words spoke to them through various life experiences, be it the good, bad or ugly. In their individual essays they examine African American history, contemplate current events and compare the two, asses the similarities, ponder over the changes, while also simultaneously taking into account Morrison's impactful words, wishing and thinking, that if only more people read her books, understood and talked about the difficult, uncomfortable and important things she wrote about, maybe, maybe our world would have been less troubled.

The Toni Morrison Book Club also sheds light on several cultural tropes and racist terms, and on why they are wrong and why microaggression shouldn't be confused for compliment. Examples include - "strong Black girls", "exotic beauty", "Black sass/aggression", "Can I touch your pretty textured hair" and many more. As a reader, we gain plenty of perspective on the relevance of Morrison's words in our present society. It's also terrifying to realize that a considerable number of horrors portrayed in her books are still prevalent, certainly overlooked and glossed over but present nonetheless. Slavery might be illegal but not every person is truly free in the twenty first century. 

Despite this being a non fiction, it is an excellent example of why fiction is paramount in our lives. The feeling of being wholly understood after reading something in a book is unparalleled and it makes the reader both bold and vulnerable. In The Toni Morrison Book Club, its four writers have bared out their souls, writing about uncomfortable intimate things, things they haven't spoken aloud in years, but in here, having acquired the courage to do so after reading and being inspired by Morrison's words.

Really, I learned a huge deal from this short 200 something page book and now am also motivated to read my first Morrison. And although I listened to this on audio,  (highly recommended), I also plan on getting myself a physical copy in order to highlight and reread because along with everything this is an extremely quotable book as well.

Just read this, even if you don't read memoirs or nonfiction because there is plenty to gain and learn from its contents.

**A free ALC was provided by LibroFM in exchange for an honest review. All opinions my own **

[chantel nouseforaname · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four friends come together to discuss how Toni Morrison's work has impacted them on different levels, 3 black women and a white man. So many emotions were explored - so many complex, layered, complicated, and heartbreaking realities.

Cassandra, Juda, Winnie, and Piper discuss Toni Morrison's work in juxtaposition to their lives as mothers, as outsiders, as queer folks, as the exoticized, fetishized, ostracized, and misunderstood.

Their essays discuss Black joy and pain in the face of white violence, and various personal reflections on the cruelties that people can bestow upon each other. However, it's not all misery. They share with each other and with us the readers, how they've felt seen, and have found understanding through Ms. Morrison's work, how her work has bonded the members of the Toni Morrison Book Club closer together and created space for each of them to live in their fullness, to tell the truth where life requires it.

All of the essays were connected to different books and I realized I have SO much more of Ms. Morrison's work to read. They discussed some that I have read in great detail: The Bluest Eye, Beloved. They also discuss others that I haven't read in varying detail: Song of Solomon, A Mercy, but hold back enough to not spoil the books if you haven't read them.

I really love how this group came together to make a book like this happen. I love to see the celebration of transformative and impactful Black women, so this warmed my heart and expanded my future read list.

[Ashley Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully rendered collection of deeply personal stories, intertwined with thoughts on several of Toni Morrison's books and how the book club related to those books - Beloved, Song of Solomon, A Mercy, and The Bluest Eye. I want to come back to it after I've read more of Morrison's work.

Edit: It's probably a good idea to be familiar with these four novels prior to reading The Toni Morrison Book Club, but I don't think it's a prerequisite - important plot points are mentioned so, spoilers, but having only read The Bluest Eye (and being partway through Beloved) at the time of reading this, I didn't feel lost when it came to the book discussions at all.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't stop reading this, partly because it was written by four of my colleagues, but mostly because it was honest and challenging and beautifully written. This literary memoir is all about what books mean to us, how they get under our skin and into our hearts and help us see ourselves, each other, and the world with greater clarity.

In this case, the authors are writing about Toni Morrison's books (The Bluest Eye, Beloved, A Mercy, and Song of Solomon) as well as her legacy. Their essays are about identity, motherhood, beauty, mental health, race, desire, music, resistance, healing and so much more.

I eventually had to put the book down because I finished it, but I'm not sure I'm done with it. It lingers.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

One reason we read is to walk in another person's shoes and this book provides four sets of shoes we can try on and take a few steps in. These four professors have taken a select few of Toni Morrison's books and told some deeply personal stories about how these books relate to their lives. It's an interesting and unique approach. I, in turn, enjoyed the stories and squirmed because of them. But that's another reason to read: to step out of our comfort zone and learn a little about other people's experiences.

[Bonnieb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I give very few five star reviews; this incredible memoir, cultural critique, and literary analysis is one of the most important books I have read in many years. I say this because it spoke to me both at an emotional and an intellectual level.

TMBC was written by four authors, all faculty at the College of New Jersey—3 black women and 1 white gay man. Each reveals a secret and then writes stories encompassing both that secret and a bridge to TM’s writing. The stories are biographical in nature; they are memories of childhood or earlier life as a black woman or a gay white man.

The authors are all engaging story-tellers. I could feel their pain as they wrote of their fears, their experiences, their surviving as black in a white world.

This is a book I savored, reading slowly, reflecting on similar/dissimilar fears or experiences, writing in the margins. I reread it immediately after first read. And I cried when Winnie wrote of her son’s first experience with police when he went away to college. Thank you to these authors for sharing their stories with us.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toni Morrison made it clear in her first novel, The Bluest Eye, that she wrote for people within her own African-American community. She invited other readers to listen and learn. I felt the same intention in play as I read this fascinating meditation among four friends who share a profession (they’re all English professors), but more importantly a deep connection to and passion for the work of Toni Morrison. They weave their own lives with Morrison’s and with her characters’s lives as well.

As a white reader in this time of Black Lives Matter I listened and learned from their generous sharing of pain and joy. My own deep love for the work of Morrison was complicated by and enriched by their reflections and stories. I thank them for both.

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was not sure what to expect from this book but since Toni Morrison is one of my favorite authors, I decided to give this book a "listen".
I was very pleasantly surprised with the thoughts of the memoir essays by four college professors on the writing of Ms. Morrison books and how they related it to personal incidents in their lives.
I found their thoughts to be insightful, thoughtful, intimate, and timely.
It reminded me of how words on a page can help make sense of our world and how great writing is can be timeless in its application to humanity.

[Alena · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an unabashed Morrison fan, I was thrilled when I happened upon this title. I’ve never before read a group memoir, but these four authors are so smart and honest and creative that nothing ever felt out of synch. The words of Morrison and of this collective group are more important than ever in the face of the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement. I was moved by their stories and by their insightful interpretations of Morrison’s works. If possibly, I came away an even bigger fan.

[Amanda Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book completely by chance because it was on a library display while I was waiting to check out some books. It initially caught my eye because I had read and loved Sula and Beloved, and I almost left it behind for the same reason; I hadn't yet gotten around to reading the rest of Morrison's novels, or even her most famous ones. To be honest, I gave it a chance because it was short.

I didn't know what I was about to get into, which is probably my own fault for looking more at the cover art than the summary. The title, The Toni Morrison Book Club, for some reason reminded me of The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, so I subconsciously went into it expecting some kind of summer camp vibe. Instead, I found a deeply vulnerable, honest discussion of race and racism today.

Somewhere in between personal journals and literary critique, The Toni Morrison Book Club contemplates what Morrison's work means to the individuals who read it and how her words, even those written for a 1600s setting, speak to current manifestations of race and racism. The most striking thing about this book was how each of the authors dove into their own experiences and used Morrison's novels as a framework to consider how they personally came to think about race as well as how the broader American population has built its perception of it. It was less about breaking down the scholarly value of Morrison's characters or style and more about exploring the process of reading itself and the questions that arise along the way. This book asks, why do we read Morrison? What do we get out of reading about the past? How can we apply Morrison's ideas to today's world?

One problem with the flow of the book was that the structure of four different authors wasn't navigated any more creatively than by placing each one's work in chunks one after the other. I wonder if it would have been better to place the chapters about Beloved together, followed by those about Song of Solomon, and so on. I also didn't find the "___'s Secret" chapters to be very useful as the author got into their 'secret' anyways; better to leave it to the author's own words and just skip the filler prefaces. Finally, there were a few sections towards the end that just got repetitive. Two sections in "On Guns and Apples", only separated by a page, actually made me laugh because the wording was so noticeably repetitive. First, "A Mercy reminds me of an America before the color line...not perfect, but possible. It reminds me of a historical moment in America when people of different backgrounds could look beyond racial and ethnic differences and focus, instead, on our humanity" (141). Then, "A Mercy reminds us of a time, although not perfect, when our sense of humanity created possibilities for community and nation building in spite of our racial and ethnic differences" (143). This chapter could've used more proofreading.

Reading this in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder and as protests demanding the end of police brutality explode across the United States, the connections The Toni Morrison Book Club draws between Morrison's words and the current experiences of Black Americans are all the more visceral. For anyone who has read even one of Morrison's novels, this book is a space to delve into why her work matters to each of us and what we need to think about as we strive to dismantle the racist systems still in place in America today.

[Mom_Loves_Reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a terrific audiobook! So many important topics are covered by the two narrators in this multi-vocal memoir. "The Toni Morrison Book Club" is a vulnerable, honest, insightful collection of essays that are eye-opening & thought-provoking.

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I totally loved, loved, loved this book. The book is so relevant and timely. Highly recommended, especially if you'd like to start reading Morrison.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was loaned a copy of THE TONI MORRISON BOOK CLUB ages ago by @inkandpaperblog but I just got around to reading it. I got a deal on the audiobook from @AppleBooks so I decided to read and listen. The premise of this book is eight personal essays, centered around four Toni Morrison booked, two per writer. All of the authors are professors of English at The College of New Jersey who have bonded over a love of Toni Morrison and taught her books in their classes. The members are three black women, one gay white man, all are parents. These essays explore what race means in America at the present moment through the lens of Toni Morrisons writing. The four books chosen were The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Song of Solomon, and A Mercy. The essays analyze an element of the books and the authors and explore the themes and ideas through their personal lives. I thought this book was simply brilliant. It deepened my admiration for Toni Morrison and gave me a crash course from four English professors. I also loved the person essays, the deep, honest stories told about race in America. I flew through this book because every essay was compelling. If you’ve read a Toni Morrison book or you want a more personal discussion of racism and blackness in the present, I highly recommend this book. ★★★★★ • Audiobook / Paperback • Nonfiction - Essay, Memoir, Race • Published by University of Wisconsin Press on February 4, 2020. ◾︎

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. In this group memoir, four academics (one white gay man and four black women) share how they formed a book club to discuss the books of Toni Morrison and the life lessons each of them has learned from her books. Combining personal essay, cultural critique and academic analysis, the four authors focus their work on four Morrison novels (The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Song of Solomon and A Mercy), with each of the four authors contributing two essays to the collection. In addition to an in-depth exploration of these four novels, the authors explore what we can learn from Toni Morrison in living through Trump's America. Issues such as beauty standards, mental illness and how to raise black children are also explored.
Because this book is written by four professors, there are times when the writing veers away from the personal and toward the scholarly. However, the personal anecdotes and opinions that the authors assert continually throughout make this book very readable. As might be expected, I did get more out of the sections dealing with the novels I've already read. However, reading this book has reminded me of Morrison's great skill as a writer, and I think I will be picking up more of her books sooner having read this book. All in all, this book is a heartwarming story of friendship and solidarity and a beautiful tribute to Morrison. Don't miss the epilogue and afterward, where the authors share two letters they wrote to Morrison as they were preparing this book.

[Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not realize that this was non-fiction when I decided to read this. I cannot resist a book about a library, or a book club, and one about Toni Morrison sounded fantastic. I am not usually a fan of non-fiction, this is one of the exceptions. I started it thinking I might decide not to finish and am so glad that I did. It is a book of memoirs, personal and compelling and put into perspective of current events and Toni Morrison's books. I loved some more than others, probably because I could relate to them more. Some went into more literary discussions that I am used to as a non-english major. This book is a gem, though. It has made me want to pull out and reread my Toni Morrison books and add the ones I haven't read yet. It is touching and real.

[Gerry Durisin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm inspired to read (and in some cases re-read) all of Toni Morrison's novels after listening to this group memoir, made up of essays based on conversations among four readers who love her works and who gathered together to discuss the impact of her works on their own lives. I'm sure I'd find even more depth in them now after re-visiting them from the perspective of the Toni Morrison Book Club members. The authors discuss four of Morrison's novels, drawing connections to conditions and events in the US both at the time the books were written and also into the twenty-first century, and share incidents in their own lives that serve as poignant reminders of how far this country has yet to travel to reach anything like racial equality.

[Fatima A. Alsaif · Rating 5 out of 5]

That is a fascinating book about the influence of an exceptional author. The idea of having four friends read and discuss books and then reflect on their individual and shared experiences through writing a group memoir was so creative. And I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I picked this book to read, but it was very pleasing. It’s thoughtful, reflective, authentic, honest, and so sincere.
It would help you as a reader if you read some of Toni Morrison’s books like Beloved, The Bluest Eyes, Song of Solomon, etc. However, the authors were good at delivering their thoughts, emotions, and experiences compared to the books they discussed in a way that didn’t make me feel lost since I didn’t read some of Toni Morrison’s books discussed in this memoir.

Highly recommend!

[Shalini singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommendedreading

A group memoir which sings like a canary with Toni Morrison as the soundtrack.

This Audiobook, in all it's maturity is roughly my fifth Audiobook. I have never written before about Audiobooks. I got a lot of chance to explore #blackliterature when I befriended a Jamaican reading buddy in Gurgaon. I briefly grew up in a culture of Rap songs and Whiz Khalifa vibes with a dash of Snoop Doug. I used to read books like "Morgan Parker's There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce" And some books which are long forgotten in my memory because it's been a while since I made Squash rolls with Henry or learnt about Kenyan culture specific literature from my friend Sunny.

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Four friends, a mix of black and white, gay and straight, immigrant and American-born—use Toni Morrison’s novels as a springboard in The Toni Morrison Book Club.

Stories pushing us to discuss more than the mood of the world. More than just accounts, it's a collection of first accounts. Shaping racism, one story at a time. "burying hurt" was uncovering it with Morrison. All the readings I read as a teenager were of Morrison and Wolfe. And Morrison is immortalized in this book, one book at a time. You want to learn about post truth? About post racial accounts? In  50 years of writing by Morrison, we have a disturbing racial history strewn together. Finding the personal in the political... An eminently quotable book, The Toni Morrison Book Club is a collaborative creativism. After reading this you might think what if we become a Toni Morrison novel? A chilling usurping of how black women suffered while the white rested at home. How the antics of hate is poverty feeding on the tones of white. How these four go on a spiritual quest through a book club. How they disagree, how they put forth their views, how they compare and collaborate. I hate Trump more now and I hate history taught to us which is a cover of grisly details, presented tastefully. Hearing voices like Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Daniel Henning, Bahni Turpin are the real voices of enlightenment on the hot topic surveying us to read more on books of reasons and Black History.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thinking about race with these four professors who tell their stories while swimming in Morrison's novels--Beloved, Bluest Eye, A Mercy, and Song of Solomon--was so compelling. I thought differently about race, about the novels, and about Morrison herself.

[Hanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this idea of jointly writing a book, particularly nonfiction. This book is basically a joint memoir (sort of) where each member of this book club (3 Black women and 1 gay white man) write a bit about Morrison’s work & it’s relation to their lives. Also, the analysis on Beloved helped me digest my own first reading of Beloved. I listened to this one on audio courtesy of Libro.fm! (Will say I thought it was an odd decision for the presumable white male narrator to read a part with multiple instances of the N-word in it...🤔)

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

“How far do I go back in time to find that moment when I had faith in the world?”

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I think because I read so much of this type stuff for work, I didn’t really find anything these authors said about Morrison’s book all that inspiring or insightful. Except for the stuff about humor. People always take Morrison SO SERIOUSLY. I’m wondering if maybe she was funnier than we give her credit for.

[Booked.Shaye BWRT · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top 5 Favorite Books of the Year.
This is a bout a group of friends who gets together & basically summarizes their favorite Toni Morrison book. & then kind of matches that book to their life. Or real life experiences. This was so eye opening. This book helped me write my own book with my Book Club.
Black Women Read Too Bookclub
instagram : BWRT.Bookclub.

[Cece Harbor · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love-love Toni Morrison, you'll enjoy this book. This is an honest conversation among friends/colleagues about the world around them while using Ms. Morrison's words as a backdrop. I mean, who hasn't been influenced by Toni Morrison in some way.

This book offers a unique twist to a book club.

[Mayleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m going to be recommending this for suggested book. Club books. Great concept. The introduction gave me goosebumps it was so good.