The Women of Brewster Place - A Novel in Seven Stories

Zusatztext "[Naylor's] ardent inventiveness as a storyteller and the complex individuality she gives to each of her seven main characters make the novel so much more than a contrived literary assembly line. . . . Deftly, Naylor gathers all these individual stories into one climactic narrative that works through the reader via a word-by-word sense of horror and outrage. . . .  The Women of Brewster Place , born of the details of a particular time and community, also turns out to be one of those, yes, universal stories depicting how we, the fallen, seek grace.” — Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air “The most refreshing voice in the black idiom since readers first discovered Toni Morrison.” —Claude Brown, author of Manchild in the Promised Land “Naylor creates a completely believable, and very frightening, world of degradation, violence and human—very human—courage and sturdiness.”  — Chicago Sun-Times “Vibrating with undisguised emotion, The Women of Brewster Place springs from the same roots that produces the blues. Like them, [Naylor’s] book sings of sorrow proudly borne by black women in America.” — The Washington Post Informationen zum Autor Gloria Naylor; Foreword by Tayari Jones Klappentext The National Book Award-winning novel-and contemporary classic-that launched the brilliant career of Gloria Naylor "[A] shrewd and lyrical portrayal of many of the realities of black life . . . Miss Naylor bravely risks sentimentality and melodrama to write her compassion and outrage large, and she pulls it off triumphantly." -The New York Times Book Review In her heralded first novel, Gloria Naylor weaves together the stories of seven women living in Brewster Place, a bleak-inner city sanctuary, creating a powerful, moving portrait of the strengths, struggles, and hopes of black women in America. Vulnerable and resilient, openhanded and openhearted, these women forge their lives in a place that in turn threatens and protects-a common prison and a shared home. Naylor renders both loving and painful human experiences with simple eloquence and uncommon intuition. Adapted into a 1989 ABC miniseries starring Oprah Winfrey, The Women of Brewster Place is a touching and unforgettable read. Leseprobe Dawn Brewster Place was the bastard child of several clandestine meetings between the alderman of the sixth district and the managing director of Unico Realty Company. The latter needed to remove the police chief of the sixth district because he was too honest to take bribes and so had persisted in harassing the gambling houses the director owned. In turn, the alderman wanted the realty company to build their new shopping center on his cousin's property in the northern section of town. They came together, propositioned, bargained, and slowly worked out the consummation of their respective desires. As an afterthought, they agreed to erect four double-housing units on some worthless land in the badly crowded district. This would help to abate the expected protests from the Irish community over the police chief's dismissal; and since the city would underwrite the costs, and the alderman could use the construction to support his bid for mayor in the next election, it would importune neither man. And so in a damp, smoke-filled room, Brewster Place was conceived. It was born three months later in the city legislature, and since its true parentage was hidden, half the community turned out for its baptism two years later. They applauded wildly as the smiling alderman smashed a bottle of champagne against the edge of one of the buildings. He could hardly be heard over the deafening cheers as he told them, with a tear in the corner of his eye, it was the least he could do to help make space for all their patriotic boys who were on the way home from the Great ...

Report

"[Naylor's] ardent inventiveness as a storyteller and the complex individuality she gives to each of her seven main characters make the novel so much more than a contrived literary assembly line. . . . Deftly, Naylor gathers all these individual stories into one climactic narrative that works through the reader via a word-by-word sense of horror and outrage. . . . The Women of Brewster Place, born of the details of a particular time and community, also turns out to be one of those, yes, universal stories depicting how we, the fallen, seek grace.
Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air

The most refreshing voice in the black idiom since readers first discovered Toni Morrison.
Claude Brown, author of Manchild in the Promised Land

Naylor creates a completely believable, and very frightening, world of degradation, violence and human very human courage and sturdiness.  
Chicago Sun-Times

Vibrating with undisguised emotion, The Women of Brewster Place springs from the same roots that produces the blues. Like them, [Naylor s] book sings of sorrow proudly borne by black women in America.
The Washington Post

The miracle of the National Book Awards choices in 1983, which included Naylor s The Women of Brewster Place and Walker s The Color Purple, meant that books that sounded in me in new and more complete ways were held up as models of great literature. It meant that Walker s and Naylor s works could garner much wider publicity and acclaim, and more easily find their way to small, rural libraries around the country.( )While Naylor provided witness and reason for my people, Walker provided witness and reason for my place.
Jesmyn Ward, The Washington Post

Product details

• Authors: Tayari Jones, Gloria Naylor
• Publisher: Penguin Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 11.05.2021
• EAN: 9780143136163
• ISBN: 978-0-14-313616-3
• No. of pages: 208
• Dimensions: 136 mm x 204 mm x 19 mm
• Series: Penguin Vitae
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature