Ron David calls Toni Morrison a “literary Conjure Woman” and for good reason: Her stories are vast, tricky, complex, multi-layered and, as he concedes, sometimes hard to figure. In Toni Morrison for Beginners he summarizes her life and novels and asserts: “She’s the kind of writer who can change your life.” The first black woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Morrison’s writing is grounded in her experience as an African American woman, yet each novel travels a different path toward universal themes of family, prejudice and the power of the human spirit. David’s book is a fine overview for longtime readers of Morrison’s novels as well as a good place to begin exploring her oeuvre.
