Sula

Toni Morrison is a wonderful author providing insights into a world rather lightly discussed, the plight of African-Americans.  In this book, Sula, Morrison sets this story in Northern Ohio during the 1920s through the 1960s.  Like many of her other stories, there is a dark side to the story and a rather complicated depth to her characters.  The story begins by introducing the character, Shadrack, who is released from a mental facility after serving in the military and witnessing death and destruction during the war and then sets off to Medallion, his home while growing up. The two main characters, Sula and Nel are childhood friends, from rather different family situations, Nel from a stable family life, while Sula lives in a home that houses visitors and her non-traditional family.  The two girls lives go in very different directions, Nel settles down and gets married, while Sula disappears after her mother is killed in a burning accident.  Before her departure she is involved in a freak “accident,” the twirling of a neighborhood boy over the river, who slips from her hands and drowns.  The series of strange incidents involving Sula creates a “shadow” of mystery and evil from which others want to avoid.  It comes full circle upon Sula’s return to Medallion and takes her friend’s husband, Jude, out of Nel’s arms by bedding down with him while Nel goes out, yet returns to find the two of them in her bedroom. The citizens of the town are fearful of Sula and all that they believe she does. Just as the community was driven out of the valley from the white townspeople, it is driven out of the valley years after Sula dies, which reminds the people of her ongoing hold over them even in her death.  Morrison’s depiction of the complexity of the time is best illustrated in Sula and how she is seen as a villain as she takes away “things” from others, just as the white population does from the African-American community. This is a relatively brief read with a complex characters intertwined in a place that is supposed to provide relief from the racial divide. A darkness of death is profound in Morrison’s stories.  The brutality throughout the story reflects some of Morrison’s own life, being alone, yet the hope for escape from the hands that contain and strangle. A strong portrayal of the on-going challenges of race in an unfair society.  Worth picking up, as are her other stories.