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This book explores Toni Morrison´s use of family in her narratives, particularly on the roles of mother and child. .

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In this revised edition, Linda Wagner-Martin offers a compelling study of African American writer Toni Morrison´s work, beginning with The Bluest Eye in 1970 and continuing through her 2015 novel God Help the Child. Wagner-Martin describes Morrison as an inherently original novelist who was shaped throughout her career by her role within families. Her study focuses on Morrison´s use of family in her narratives, particularly on the roles of mother and child. Beginning with the paradigm of a good mother (Mrs. MacTeer) in The Bluest Eye , set against women who are found wanting in their mother roles, Morrison concentrates in various ways on emphasizing these mother characters. Sometimes those roles are peripheral; more often, they are central. In Sula, for example, the title character has no interest in mothering, but she shows herself to be the product of family disinterest; in Song of Solomon Morrison creates what she terms an ancestor figure to give guidance to the young; in Tar Baby Marie Therese continues that role. Beloved tackles many dimensions of a mothers role. As Morrison continues to write her varied and powerful novels, from Jazz and Paradise through Love, A Mercy, and Home , the attention to judging the efficacy of mothering grows. Finally, in God Help the Child , she attends to little else. In Morrison´s fictional world, drawing from the human and spiritual forces in both Africa and the United States provides some hope of a truly satisfying existence.

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Preface - Acknowledgments and Reference Systems - Introduction: Morrison and the Maternal - Mothers at Random in The Bluest Eye - Sula and the Individuality of Mothering - Replacement Mothering in Song of Solomon - Tar Baby and Its Multiple Non-mothers - Beloved , Beloved, Beloved, Beloved - Jazz and Its Mothers and Non-mothers - Playing in the Dark and the Nobel Acceptance Lecture - Paradise and Its Mothers - Love and Its Absence of Mothers - A Mercy and Abandoning Mothers - Frank Money, Cee, and the Maternal in Home - God Help the Child - Coda - Notes - Selected Bibliography - Index.

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Linda Wagner-Martin is the author or editor of more than fifty books in American literature. She has been the recipient of Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships and a senior National Endowment for the Humanities grant, and she has held residencies at the Bunting Institute, Bellagio, and Bogliasco. Wagner-Martin has received many teaching awards at both Michigan State University and The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she is the Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature. She is a recent recipient of the Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Achievement in American literature.

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