Love (Morrison, Toni) [Hardcover]

"Like love at first sight, it has the ability to startle." -"The Boston Globe"
"A deeply affecting work by a Great American Novelist who is still . . . at the top of her form. . . . Morrison's tender, taut prose wastes no word, no syllable, no letter. . . . A novel of devastating revelations, impeccably arranged." -"The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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"A marvelous work, which enlarges our conception not only of love but of racial politics, the ubiquitous past and . . . paradise." -"Los Angeles Times Book Review
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"A dense, dark star of a novel . . . with Morrison writing at the top of her game." -"Newsweek"
"Toni Morrison reframes the mythology of love in a dark light and comes away with a mesmerizing gem." -"San Francisco Chronicle
""Like every other stealthy Morrison novel, "Love" has closets and cellars, bolt-holes and trap-doors and card tricks. . . . Yet again, she gives us dreams." -John Leonard, "Vanity Fair
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"The carefully crafted work of a storyteller entirely unburdened by her Nobel Prize. . . . William Faulkner and Eudora Welty would feel right welcome. . . . The moral palette of this novel displays a full range of colors." -"The Christian Science Monitor"
"A profound commentary on the power of love." -"The Baltimore Sun
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""Love "is slim and tight as a folded fan, yet from it the author flashes a panorama three generations wide. . . . When the reader closes the book . . . there is the satisfaction of a song that has ended just right. The standing soloist we applaud . . . is the fierce literary intelligence of Morrison striking the chords of human experience and playing it wise." -"The Miami Herald"
"Magisterial and gripping . . . aknockout. . . . A reminder of what a marvel a novel can be." -"Rocky Mountain News"
"To enter a novel by Morrison is to enter a world fully imagined, and "Love "is no exception. . . . "Love" takes you on the first page and holds you in the welcome spell of a writer who knows what she's doing, and who can slip into the most ordinary sentence a twist of surprise." -"San Jose Mercury News"
""Love" is Morrison back at the peak of her talent. . . . The novel lives up to its name and puts to rest any doubts that its author is anything except great." -"New York Daily News"
"[A] beautifully wrought meditation on society, family and human nature . . . brimming with provocative, beautiful writing." -"The Philadelphia Inquirer"
""Love" . . . [is] like that song you remember from long ago, the one you danced to, sweet and slow, and which has haunted you ever since. . . . Morrison's tale lies in its telling, not just the lilting lyricism of her prose but also the insight into her characters' hidden hearts." -"The Orlando Sentinel"
"For pure pleasure, it deserves to be read more than once." -"The Plain Dealer
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"There is beauty and wisdom in "Love," . . . Her lyrical talent and her profound intelligence . . . make themselves felt." -"The New York Observer" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Morrison is a fantastic novelist --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Love... abounds with an understanding of human nature that’s so sharp, some of her insights land like a spear --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Gorgeous . . . [Love is] as effective and resonant as the real thing. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

'This novel is a searing, haunting, yet beautiful masterpiece. The story resonates in the mind long after the last page is turned. Buy it. Read it' Scotland on Sunday --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

The novel lives up to its name, and puts to rest any doubts that its author is anything except great. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

In Love, Morrison probes the darker side of a good feeling and thinks tough thoughts about self-reliance, responsibility and survival --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

May, Christine, Heed, Junior, Vida–even L: all women obsessed with Bill Cosey. The wealthy owner of the famous Cosey’s Hotel and Resort, he shapes their yearnings for father, husband, lover, guardian, and friend, yearnings that dominate the lives of these women long after his death. Yet while he is either the void in, or the center of, their stories, he himself is driven by secret forces–a troubled past and a spellbinding woman named Celestial.

This audacious exploration into the nature of love–its appetite, its sublime possession, its dread–is rich in characters, striking scenes, and a profound understanding of how alive the past can be.

A major addition to the canon of one of the world’s literary masters.

Compelling, sensual, elegiac, shocking - a major new work by the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, about desire, sex, lust, obsession, yearning, and ultimately about love. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. She is the author of seven previous novels, including The Bluest Eye, Beloved (made into a major film), and most recently Paradise, and has also received the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize for her fiction. She is Robert F Goheen Professor at Princeton University. (20031017) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

PORTRAIT

The day she walked the streets of Silk, a chafing wind kept the temperature low and the sun was helpless to move outdoor thermometers more than a few degrees above freezing. Tiles of ice had formed at the shoreline and, inland, the thrown-together houses on Monarch Street whined like puppies. Ice slick gleamed, then disappeared in the early evening shadow, causing the sidewalks she marched along to undermine even an agile tread, let alone one with a faint limp. She should have bent her head and closed her eyes to slits in that weather, but being a stranger, she stared wide-eyed at each house, searching for the address that matched the one in the advertisement: One Monarch Street. Finally she turned into a driveway where Sandler Gibbons stood in his garage door ripping the seam from a sack of Ice-Off. He remembers the crack of her heels on concrete as she approached; the angle of her hip as she stood there, the melon sun behind her, the garage light in her face. He remembers the pleasure of her voice when she asked for directions to the house of women he has known all his life.

"You sure?" he asked when she told him the address.

She took a square of paper from a jacket pocket, held it with ungloved fingers while she checked, then nodded.

Sandler Gibbons scanned her legs and reckoned her knees and thighs were stinging from the cold her tiny skirt exposed them to. Then he marveled at the height of her bootheels, the cut of her short leather jacket. At first he'd thought she wore a hat, something big and fluffy to keep her ears and neck warm. Then he realized that it was hair-blown forward by the wind, distracting him from her face. She looked to him like a sweet child, fine-boned, gently raised but lost.

"Cosey women," he said. "That's their place you looking for. It ain't been number one for a long time now, but you can't tell them that. Can't tell them nothing. It 1410 or 1401, probably."

Now it was her turn to question his certainty.

"I'm telling you," he said, suddenly irritable-the wind, he thought, tearing his eyes. "Go on up thataway. You can't miss it 'less you try to. Big as a church."

She thanked him but did not turn around when he hollered at her back, "Or a jailhouse."

Sandler Gibbons didn't know what made him say that. He believed his wife was on his mind. She would be off the bus by now, stepping carefully on slippery pavement until she got to their driveway. There she would be safe from falling because, with the forethought and common sense he was known for, he was prepared for freezing weather in a neighborhood that had no history of it. But the "jailhouse" comment meant he was really thinking of Romen, his grandson, who should have been home from school an hour and a half ago. Fourteen, way too tall, and getting muscled, there was a skulk about him, something furtive that made Sandler Gibbons stroke his thumb every time the boy came into view. He and Vida Gibbons had been pleased to have him, raise him, when their daughter and son-in-law enlisted. Mother in the army; father in the merchant marines. The best choice out of none when only pickup work (housecleaning in Harbor for the women, hauling road trash for the men) was left after the cannery closed. "Parents idle, children sidle," his own mother used to say. Getting regular yard work helped, but not enough to keep Romen on the dime and out of the sight line of ambitious, under-occupied police. His own boyhood had been shaped by fear of vigilantes, but dark blue uniforms had taken over posse work now. What thirty years ago was a one-sheriff, one-secretary department was now four patrol cars and eight officers with walkie-talkies to keep the peace.

He was wiping salt dust from his hands when the two people under his care arrived at the same time, one hollering, "Hoo! Am I glad you did this! Thought I'd break my neck." The other saying, "What you mean, Gran? I had your arm all the way from the bus."

"Course you did, baby." Vida Gibbons smiled, hoping to derail any criticism her husband might be gathering against her grandson.

At dinner, the scalloped potatoes having warmed his mood, Sandler picked up the gossip he'd begun while the three of them were setting the table.

"What did you say she wanted?" Vida asked, frowning. The ham slices had toughened with reheating.

"Looking for those Cosey women, I reckon. That was the address she had. The old address, I mean. When wasn't nobody out here but them."

"That was written on her paper?" She poured a little raisin sauce over her meat.

"I didn't look at it, woman. I just saw her check it. Little scrap of something looked like it came from a newspaper."

"You were concentrating on her legs, I guess. Lot of information there."

Romen covered his mouth and closed his eyes.

"Vida, don't belittle me in front of the boy."

"Well, the first thing you told me was about her skirt. I'm just following your list of priorities."

"I said it was short, that's all."

"How short?" Vida winked at Romen.

"They wear them up to here, Gran." Romen's hand disappeared under the table.

"Up to where?" Vida leaned sideways.

"Will you two quit? I'm trying to tell you something."

"You think she's a niece, maybe?" asked Vida.

"Could be. Didn't look like one, though. Except for size, looked more like Christine's people." Sandler motioned for the jar of jalapeños.

"Christine don't have any people left."

"Maybe she had a daughter you don't know about." Romen just wanted to be in the conversation, but as usual, they looked at him as if his fly was open.

"Watch your mouth," said his grandfather. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.