Morrison and the Four Queens of the Mind
Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory - M
It wasn’t Beloved I wanted to read but The Bluest Eye.
When I first heard of this book, I thought that Toni Morrison had captured an experience I could relate to.
I bought so many Morrison books but one day I donated them because I felt I was hostage to the idea of myself as an aspirational reader. I should be reading Morrison but instead I was reading vampire stories and Christopher Pike.
After donating her books, I went out and bought The Bluest Eye.
I borrowed A Mouthful of Blood repeatedly from the library and I particularly love the essay she wrote after James Baldwin passed.
Toni Morrison lives in a special trio in my mind. There’s Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and then Maya Angelou. They are three queens of the mind.
I always put Octavia Butler separately because of where she was placed in the bookstore but also because she was solitary and shy.
About ten years ago, I discovered the writings of Alice Walker on Palestine, and her words were a beam of light in a literary landscape that was otherwise dark.