womens fiction

I know many people who don't consider LOVE to be one of Toni Morrison's most accomplished novels. I am absolutely not among those persons. While, on its surface, LOVE may seem to be a simple, more straightforward story than the very symbolic BELOVED or the somewhat sketchy and metaphorical PARADISE, I think it's structure is highly sophisticated and could have only been written by one of the world's premier authors. In short, I think LOVE is absolutely perfect in every respect.

LOVE is filled with perhaps the quirkiest cast of characters ever to be found in a Toni Morrison work. The book centers around Bill Cosey, the owner of a run down seaside hotel who has been dead for twenty-five years when the novel opens in the 1990s. Although Cosey is the centerpiece of LOVE, it the women in his life and the exertion of his influence over them, as well as their own complex relationships that form the core of LOVE, for Cosey was, by all accounts, charismatic and charming, quirky and beguiling...in short, no ordinary man, and his influence continues to be felt long after his physical presence has departed.

There is Cosey's former cook, "L," whose narration frames the story contained in LOVE. There is his lover, the mysterious Celestial, his daughter-in-law, May, and, in particular, there is his granddaughter, Christine and his second wife, the arthritic, Heed. Although May, Christine and Heed, now all quite aged, live together in Cosey's decaying mansion, it is the relationship between Christine and Heed that drives the book's narrative because it is Christine and Heed who have the most in common, who are bound together by more than their love and hate for Cosey. It is Christine and Heed who, in childhood, were the fastest of friends and it is Cosey who destroyed that friendship and drove a wedge between the girls. The relationship between Christine and Heed is fascinating as we watch its dynamics and balance of power change...and then change again.

Just because women take center stage in LOVE, this is not to say that men are absent from the book. They aren't. Conspicuously present are Sandler, an employee of Cosey's and Romen, a local boy who forms a none-too-healthy bond with Junior, a most unlikely girl. And, most present of all, is Cosey, himself...in one form or another.

While relationships form the core of LOVE, there is an interesting subplot concerning Cosey's will, which was drunkenly scrawled on a menu. The will is ambiguous...open to individual interpretation...and the women in Cosey's life do interpret it quite differently, indeed. It is the dispute over the will that drives the physical plot of LOVE.

As the "house that Cosey built" crumbles like a house of cards, Heed's, Christine's and May's vulnerabilities are exposed, as are the long dead Cosey's. The women still have time to reshape their shattered lives, to share their communal pain and untangle the puzzle imposed on them by Cosey, but will they? You'll have to read the book to find out; any hint of the resolution here would be destructive.

Like all of Toni Morrison's novels, LOVE is filled with holes and spaces...gaps and silences for the reader to fill in. Almost more than any other author, Morrison requires that her readers participate in the growth of the novel with her. I like this aspect of this brilliant writer and commend her for it. Also present in the narrative are "trademark" Morrison time shifts, flashbacks, and changing points of view. Some readers may be confused by LOVE'S sophisticated structure, but I found myself enthralled.

LOVE is certainly not a romance, but it is a book about love, or, more precisely, about the destructive power of love and about the psychic injuries and scars that we accrue when love is absent from our lives.

LOVE is rich and dense and deep and sensual. It's a lyrical, poetic work that you'll want to read once for the story and then again, simply for the language. I think it's Toni Morrison's masterpiece...yes, even better than the gorgeous and unforgettable BELOVED or the richly complex SONG OF SOLOMON. I can't imagine what this immensely brilliant author will reward us with next, but, whatever it is, I can hardly wait.

Toni Morrison is without peer; and she just keeps getting better and better. In Love (have you EVER heard a more audacious title?), Morrison crafts a rich and dense novel that illuminates the full spectrum of desire. Bill Cosey, a charismatic dude if ever there was one, ran a ritzy seaside resort for African Americans in the wild and wooly 40s and 50s. But now he's dead, and the story becomes a portrait of his power, unusual for black men of his times, and its effect on those who came after him.
Women. Oh, where would this story be without women? In Bill's wake, the women of his life vie for position, scrabbling over the will he wrote eons ago on a throw-away menu.
If you love Toni Morrison's rich writing style, you won't be disappointed, but you might want to keep a pen and pad of paper handy to keep track of the loooong list of characters.

How can you review a Toni Morrison novel? With the humbleness and appreciation that only she deserves. Morrison is simply a masterpiece to the English language, writing with an individual prose that only she can perfect with such intensity. Her novels linger within you and ripen with age. But beware for you can never walk away reading her stories only once and "Love" begs for more.

The basic ideal of "Love" is as simple and as complex as love itself. Bill Cosey is the man that all of Morrison's characters love and hate with intense fervor. At the center of life for May, Christine, Heed, Junior, Vida, L and Celestial, he wraps their lives in mystery and passion like no other becoming a father, a lover, a friend, a husband, a security blanket and even a beast to all those he encounters in the little town of Up Beach. Each of Morrison's women is weakened in some way by Bill Cosey yet they find strength within one another and in love. The relationships are rich and riddled with secrecy, so much so that one read will never reveal this novel's full meaning.

Toni Morrison's phrasing in this book is shear literary perfection. Despite the difficulty and moments of absolute confusion that will appear while reading this novel, the effort it takes is only something to be gained. Read it once and feel satisfied, twice and be enlightened, more and feel its true gift of love.