Product Description

Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. With this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison transfigures the coming-of-age story as audaciously as Saul Bellow or Gabriel García Márquez. As she follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, Morrison introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized black world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #96464 in Books
• Published on: 2004
• Released on: 2004-06-08
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 7.99" h x .73" w x 5.20" l, .74 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Amazon.com
Morrison's earthy, poetic voice compliments perfectly the fantastical and mythical elements of Song Of Soloman. A world where fathers fly in clouds of rose petals, and women can cast spells. The text is perfectly suited for an audio rendition - as poetry, songs and the spoken word feature so heavily in the book.

Morrison narrates for three hours and lays out before us the complex lives and backgrounds of four generations of black family life in the south. Central is the character Milkman--an unfortunate nickname owed to his lengthy nursing period and delayed coming of age. Although a late starter, Milkman develops into a fundamentally strong person, who eventually learns to cherish his family and the importance of his roots.

The narrator breathes life into an intriguing and diverse set of characters--from violent criminals to devout parents. Through them Morrison explores complex social and racial issues using luscious lyrical language This text refers to the audiobook edition of this title.

From Library Journal
This new version of Morrison's 1977 novel is a fitting reminder of her early creative mastery. Song of Solomon is a powerful, sensual, and poetic exploration of four generations of a family mistakenly named Dead. Told through the eyes of "Milkman," a rare male protagonist in Morrison's wonderful catalog of unforgettable characters, we discover a century's worth of secrets, ghosts, and troubles. Milkman is faced with resolving the differing memories of his parents and his mysterious aunt Pilate, while questioning the historically charged realities thrown at him by the death of real-life victims of racism like Emmett Till as viewed by his lifelong friend Guitar. Lynne Thigpen was born to tell the author's stories, catching every lyrical note and each painful cry. A perfect marriage of author and reader, this will win new audiences and reassure audio veterans that by listening to books one truly can appreciate the magic of storytelling.
-Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo, NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
There's nothing like hearing the voice of a fine author reading her own work. Toni Morrison certainly doesn't disappoint in this recording. Besides the riveting story of three generations of the Dead family, Morrison delivers to listeners each handcrafted character with precision and heartfelt enthusiasm. Periodically interwoven with Morrison's voice is another narrator's, presumably to fill in the discontinuities that occurred during editing for abridgment. This sort of tag-team narration hardly detracts from the strength of the production as a whole. SONG OF SOLOMON is a superbly crafted novel, which is only improved by Morrison's touching performance. R.A.P. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine