Still A Classic… Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon
Review by Monique Ferrell
I’m partial to stories that bookend themselves. The text begins with a Black man standing literally and metaphorically on the edge. Frustrated with life—with the treatment of Blackness in the world in which he resides—he leaps from the roof of Mercy Hospital, clad in blue silk wings. Broken-hearted, he takes with him a precious, generational secret—about Blackness and bodies that can soar away from life’s cruelties. This man, Robert Smith, dies just as Macon Dead Jr. (Milkman) is about to draw his first breath. Later, at the end of the book, Milkman will also take flight—no longer fearing the profound weight of his family, life under Jim Crow, or even death. In between these two moments, Morrison explores American history, ethnography, and Magical Realism—all wrapped up in a love story about how why Black people must learn to adore themselves… in order to achieve freedom.
I read this book every year. It’s that good, and that important to me as a Woman of Color and a writer. As an undergraduate, I remember feeling very adult once I took up the tome. It made me feel as if I understood something profound about the world and about myself. Like everything Morrison has written, it simply settled in my bones and upon my skin. It’s a work that simply…matters.