Description
Book SynopsisCritical Responses About the Black Family in Toni Morrison's God Help the Child explores the integral role of what Kobi Kambon has called the “conscious African family” in developing commercial success stories such as those of Morrison’s protagonist, Bride. Initially, Bride’s accomplishments are an extension of a superficial “cult of celebrity” which inhabits and undermines the development of meaningful interpersonal relationships until a significant literal and metaphorical journey helps her redefine success by facilitating the building of community and family.
Trade ReviewComing at the issues from the inside, the collaboration between Rhone Fraser, Natalie King-Pedroso & Company, Conflicts in Comradeship, provides a timely and useful contribution to studies on the African American family along with analyses of Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child.
-- Susan Neal Mayberry, Alfred University
In 1937, Margaret Walker wrote , “For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way/from confusion from hypocrisy and misunderstanding,/ trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people,/ all the faces all the adams and eves and their countless/ generations…” Toni Morrison’s 11th novel, God Help the Child rings with Walker’s sentiments, and Natalie King-Pedroso and Rhone Frasier’s Critical Responses about the Black Family in Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child: Conflicts in Comradeship does as well. This important collection of essays tackles the novel as a culminating moment in Morrison’s thought, a grief-filled extension of The Bluest Eye, and as a vessel sailing the African Ocean of mysteries. The text, like Morrison’s own, reaches out to the “shackled and tangled among ourselves” with the aim of letting a “beauty full of healing” come forth. Conflicts in Comradeship offers a unique and brave approach to criticism, collaboration, and reading Morrison’s under appreciated final work of fiction.
-- Monifa A. Love Asante, Bowie State University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Editors’ Introductions
Natalie King-Pedroso
Rhone Fraser
Part I: Protagonist as Child
Chapter 1. Raising the Inner Child: Lessons in Emotional Development in God Help the Child
Jasmin Wilson
Chapter 2. “The House That Race Built:” Declarations of Toni Morrison’s Prophetic Voice in God Help the Child and The Bluest Eye
Khalilah Watson
Chapter 3. Making Black Lives and Families Matter: Honoring Family and Fatherhood in God Help the Child
Sukanya Senapati
Chapter 4. Harvesting Sight and Mind: The Crippling of Community in Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child
Jericho Williams
Part II: Protagonist as Professional
Chapter 5. “Sistah From Another Mista”: Examining the Familial Bond Between Bride and Brooklyn in Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child
Na’Imah Ford
Chapter 6. The Loss and Regaining of Self: Identity Negotiation in Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child
Xenia Liashuk
Chapter 7. “Memory is the Worst Thing About Healing:” Acknowledging Multigenerational Trauma and the Middle Passage Voyage of the Sable Venus in Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child
Yolanda Franklin
Part III: Protagonist as Partner
Chapter 8. Socialized to Silence: A Close Reading of Lula Ann Bridewell and Booker Starbern in God Help the Child According to Kobi Kambon’s African Self-Consciousness Model
Rhone Fraser
Chapter 9. “You Will Love Them, No Matter How Ugly Their Truth Is”: Truth, Onomastics, and Black Women’s Humanity in Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child and Mara Brock Akil’s Being Mary Jane
Natalie King-Pedroso
Appendix A. Discussion Questions: Conflicts in Comradeship
Index
About the Editors
About the Contributors
