A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

Beloved by Toni Morrison

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Harper and Row, 1990 (Originally published 1937)
Novel, 184 pages

Zora Neale Hurston, one of America's greatest (and until recently, forgotten) writers, often associated with the Harlem Renaissance, has created a powerful and moving story of adventure, love and a woman's search for her own identity. Set in the all black town of Eatonville early in the century, Janie travels through life armed with strength and belief in herself. By the end of her quest, Janie has learned many important lessons, not the least of which is that "you got tuh go there tuh know there." Hurston used authentic dialect and wrote about the culture she knew, but this is a story for all times and all people. R.T.

Excerpt

It's uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo' papa and yo' mama and nobody else can't tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.

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A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Fawcett Columbine, 1991
Novel, 371 pages

Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of an Iowa farm family is a rich, multi-layered parable of the destructive power of patriarchy, as well as a modern, American version of King Lear. In Smiley's retelling the reader witnesses a family's demise through the eyes of eldest daughter Ginny. As in Lear, this daughter is still quite capable of treachery, but in Smiley's version, she and her sister Rose appear in a sympathetic light.

The fertile Iowa farmland and the family's thousand acres attain near-mythic proportions as Smiley explores the self-destructive nature of the urge to master the land and dominate women. As in Shakespeare's classic, this novel can only end in tragedy, but Smiley leaves the door open to the possibility of healing and forgiveness. J.G.

Excerpt

It was easy, sitting there and looking at him, to see it his way. What did we deserve, after all? I squirmed, remembering my ungrateful thoughts, the deliciousness I had felt putting him in his place. When he talked, he had this effect on me. Of course it was silly to talk about "my point of view." When my father asserted his point of view, mine vanished. Not even I could remember it.

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Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
Viking Penguin Inc., 1977
Novel, 262 pages

If Native American people adopt the values of a white culture that views them as less than human, they learn to despise themselves. In Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko clearly exposes this double bind sociologists call internalized oppression. She also points the way out.

Tayo has returned to the Laguna Pueblo reservation after World War II, having been held by the Japanese as a prisoner of war. His sense of alienation from the white culture as well as from his native world is all but complete, and despair ravages his body and soul. Ceremony is the story of his healing. Like the cattle specially bred by his Uncle Josiah and reclaimed by Tayo as part of his healing ceremony, Tayo is a survivor. He learns there are ways to adapt to changing realities that honor the values and the ancient stories of his people, that allow him to remain true to himself. There is much in this book that is wise and hopeful. Parts of it read like prayer. It is a book to be read again and again. C.W.

Excerpt

"Indians wake up every morning of their lives to see the land which was stolen, still there, within reach, its theft being flaunted. And the desire is strong to make things right, to take back what was stolen and to stop them from destroying what they have taken. But you see, Tayo, we have done as much fighting as we can with the destroyers and the thieves: as much as we could do and survive."

Tayo walked over and knelt in front of the ribs roasting over the white coals of the fire.

"Look," Betonie said, pointing east to Mount Taylor towering dark blue with the last twilight. "They only fool themselves when they think it is theirs. The deeds and papers don't mean anything. It is the people who belong to the mountain."

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Beloved by Toni Morrison
Alfred A Knopf, 1987
Novel, 338 pages

"Beloved" is the word written on the tombstone of Sethe's baby daughter, and Beloved is the name of a young woman without a history who appears at Sethe's door in post-Civil War Ohio. Toni Morrison reveals the painful story of slavery and its aftereffects through the voices and memories of Sethe and others who fled the South for freedom. Her narrative style recreates memory in jagged, crystalline pieces that finally yield an intensely personal yet universal picture of abuse, cruelty, and survival. Morrison was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature, and Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. J.G.

Excerpt

Rainwater held on to pine needles for dear life and Beloved could not take her eyes off Sethe. Stooping to shake the damper, or snapping sticks for kindling, Sethe was licked, tasted, eaten by Beloved's eyes. Like a familiar, she hovered, never leaving the room Sethe was in unless required and told to. She rose early in the dark to be there, waiting, in the kitchen when Sethe came down to make fast bread before she left for work. In lamplight, and over the flames of the cooking stove, their two shadows clashed and crossed on the ceiling like black swords.

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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Warner Books, 1960
Novel, 281 pages

In this brilliantly written American novel set in the South of the 1930s, Atticus Finch, one of the most decent and heroic characters in literature, defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. As a result his children, Scout and Jem, bear the burden of their father's breaking the community's racial code. Narrated by Scout, in language that is humorous, original, and completely without guile, To Kill a Mockingbird unveils the evil of racism in both its subtle and unmistakable forms, and shows the effects of scapegoating and ostracizing those in our midst. As the story unfolds, Scout loses her innocence, and learns important lessons about honor and decency. Based on her own childhood experience, Lee's lone novel continues to delight and challenge readers. If you've already read it, it is well worth reading again. If you haven't, it belongs at the top of your "must read" list. R.T.

Excerpt

Atticus placed his fork beside his knife and pushed his plate aside. "Mr. Cunningham's basically a good man." he said, "he just has his blind spots along with the rest of us."

Jem spoke. "Don't call that a blind spot. He'da killed you last night when he first went there."

"He might have hurt me a little," Atticus conceded, "but son, you'll understand folks a little better when you're older. A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every Southern town is always made up of people you know-doesn't say much for them, does it?"

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