Ep. 382 God Help the Child by Toni Morrison — The Stacks Book Club (Dana A. Williams)

Written By Wy'Kia Frelot

It’s The Stacks Book Club Day, and we're discussing Toni Morrison's God Help the Child with Dana A. Williams, author of Toni at Random. Together, we talk about the themes that show up in God Help the Child that have echoes from Morrison's earlier work—generational trauma and racialized beauty. We also discuss why Toni Morrison wanted to write a contemporary novel, the great names in the book, and who we would cast in the film.

There are spoilers on this episode.

Be sure to listen to the end of today’s episode to find out what our August book club pick will be.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Dana A. Williams 0:00

I'm sometimes frustrated with stories that tie things neatly up in a bow. This one isn't quite in a bow.

Traci Thomas 0:07

No, it's just like a knot.

Dana A. Williams 0:10

It's a really interesting knot that sweetness tells us is going to be knotty for the kid, right for the unborn child. But I think the thing that we have to think about is we got to find goodness in ways that evil cannot dominate. Because if you are not careful, it's very easy to think that evil has taken over.

Traci Thomas 0:37

Welcome to the Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them, I'm your host, Traci Thomas, and it is the Stacks Book Club day. This month, we have been reading Toni Morrison's final novel, God Help the Child. And once again, I am joined by Dana A. Williams, an African American literature professor and the author of Toni at Random--The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship. Dana is the perfect guest to discuss this contemporary novel written by Toni Morrison in 2015.Today we discuss the complexities of this novel, dive into the lives of all of the characters and debate the ending of this book. There are spoilers on today's episode. Don't forget to listen to the end of the episode to find out what our August book club pick will be. Quick reminder everything we talk about on each episode of the stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. If you love this podcast, one episode a week is just not enough for you. If you want some bonus content from me, we've got a Patreon and a sub stack. To join the stacks pack on Patreon, go to patreon.com/the. Stacks. You'll get bonus episodes. You'll get access to the discord. You can be part of our amazing mega reading challenge. And if you're looking for my thoughts on pop culture, my reviews and so much more, you can head to my sub stack at Traci Thomas, dot sub stack.com, both of those places make this show possible. So please check them out. Join the community talk books with me. Okay, now it's time for my conversation with Dana A. Williams.

Traci Thomas 2:17

All right, everybody. Toni Morrison month book club. Wednesday, we are back at it. I am joined again by the wonderful Dana A Williams, author of Toni at random. Dana, welcome back.

Dana A. Williams 2:29

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Traci Thomas 2:30

I'm so excited for this, and you and I are gonna be talking about, God help the child. Toni Morrison's 11th and final novel. We so for everybody listening, I'm just going to say this up front, off top. Don't get mad. We are going to spoil this book. So if you have not read the book, pause the episode. Go read it. Or if you're a person who don't care, doesn't care about spoilers. Now, you know. Okay

Dana A. Williams 2:53

I am though I just have you don't care. No, I don't, because part of it is I won't remember if I'm really into the book. It'll be fresh the first time I read it, and then I'll remember, like, weeks later, oh my gosh, I heard that on the on the podcast.

Traci Thomas 3:07

I'm the opposite. I remember every little thing someone says, so even if someone's like, Oh, I love the book, but the ending was a little weird. Then the whole time I'm reading, waiting for like, what's the weird thing? Like, what's gonna happen? We always start here for Book Club, which is just high level, sort of generally, what did you think of the book? And also for you, because I know you've read it before. How many times have you read it?

Dana A. Williams 3:32

I think this makes the third time I read it when it first came out. I read it another time when I was talking about it for something else, and then I just read it again for this time. Because in the same way that I don't remember spoilers, I don't always remember the book.

Traci Thomas 3:45

I don't remember the book often. Okay, so what did you think of it? How did it compare for you from the first time to this time, if you remember?

Dana A. Williams 3:52

I enjoyed it more. I think this time, in part because I was reading for pleasure, even as I was getting ready to talk to you, but also I had a sense of what would happen, so I was less concerned than I was the first time, because the first time I read, I was like, oh my goodness, how is this going to end? Like, what's going to happen? Like, is she going to be okay? Is Booker going to be okay? Lord, if Queen dies? No, right? That whole thing this time, I read it with a different kind of lens, and had a little more fun with it.

Traci Thomas 4:22

Okay, so here's my high level. I really liked this. I think for the most part, I thought this was really good. I went in with extremely low expectations, because I feel like people don't talk about this novel very often. It sort of is like the one people don't remember either good or bad, but I generally feel like people don't love it or haven't read it. And so I sort of went in being like, this is gonna be kind of a slog. And it is not that at all. It is like, I would say for me so far, this is my eighth of 11. It was the most. Readable one, like it was the one that I I read it, and I was like, No, I get it. I got it very clear, which, you know, some people might say is not what they want from a Toni Morrison novel. But I had a great time. And I was sort of impressed that she could do it so lean and clean and tight and like because I'd never read anything of hers that felt like that. I also, and we can talk about this more. This one felt like a fairy tale to me, like a dark well, it had, like the sort of quest element. It had these, like really antithetical characters, like rain and bride, like visually, they set up in these ways. And then there also was sort of this, like dark, tro traumatic backstory for everybody that was sort of presented in these little vignettes. And that sort of reminded me of a fairy tale, of like, now we're going to this place, and we meet this person who has this story. And I liked it, you know, like it was sort of not like Alice in wonderlandy, but in that way, that bride is like on this adventure, and she's trying to figure out what's going on and what's gonna happen, and she meets this person, we meet this person, and it all kind of comes together. I can see that it felt like that to me, not like a fairy tale, like there's a princess, but also, actually, it sort of has a fairy tale ending, if you want to read it, a dark fairy tale ending, you know?

Dana A. Williams 6:23

Like with the princess theme, with bride, very intentionally, with the name, but I see what you mean now, especially around all of the different adventure parts. And then when we're honest about it, fairy tales can be dark too.

Traci Thomas 6:34

Yes, most of them are. I mean, like the Brothers Grimm or whatever, those are the ones that inspired all of our faves are very not. They're not kid friendly.

Dana A. Williams 6:45

I know, and let's not talk about Disney movies where somebody always dies. The parents, I don't get it.

Traci Thomas 6:50

But the parents are dead at the beginning of every single one. So I don't know. It did remind me. It did remind me of that a lot. I think it was you. But now I can't remember, because after I finished the book and after our conversation, last time I went and read a bunch of things about it, and I think it was you who said that this one is sort of a mirror to The Bluest Eye.

Dana A. Williams 7:10

Yeah, I receive it that way. And I too have been listening to a couple of things. And on the one hand, Morrison talked about it, not being in conversation with the other books, but also, and I think by that, she meant structurally, she wasn't thinking, Oh, let me go revisit this thing. But when you think about the opposite kind of response that picola has to her blackness, seeing that in bride, I think the two books are in conversation with each other, because bride figures out how to use that blackness to her advantage, whereas picola is swallowed by it.

Traci Thomas 7:46

Right, right. Yes. That was a thing that was in my head as I was reading it, and I was like, Oh, this makes so much sense. Do you think she knew this would be her last novel?

Dana A. Williams 7:54

Yes and no, yes, in the sense that she had a sense that she had picked this up. She thought the 10th was going to be from what I understand, but she had started this before she finished another novel. And thought, I don't know how to really deal with the contemporary like real time, because her pieces tend to be so heavily dependent on periods. And then to pick it up again. I think she thought, Oh, I think I see what this character wants to do. And if I'm not mistaken, she had some other manuscripts that were in process, but not as far along as God helped the child. So I think she had a sense that it, it might be, it might be.

Traci Thomas 8:33

Do you Why do you think she wanted to write a contemporary novel? Why not just stick with her bread and butter?

Dana A. Williams 8:39

Do I think the challenge, um, the challenge she's talked often about every ques, every book, beginning with a question, and trying to do something different structurally with the book, and having not done a book that was set in the contemporary moment, I don't know, a challenge that Toni Morrison didn't meet for herself. Like she's like, Huh, no one really has a character who's a teenager completely from the teenager's perspective, where the teenager isn't sometimes a caricature. So then she says, All right, this is how I'm going to tell this Emmett Till story. Because we think of Emmett Till as this kid who doesn't have the opportunity to tell his own story. But then what would it look like if you did so every time there's something where it's a puzzling thing that just keeps nagging at her, eventually she explores it. And so this what happens to a character in the contemporary moment with all that's going on? I think was a question that just kept pulling at her, and she thought, all right, let's see if I can figure it out.

Traci Thomas 9:39

Wait which one's the Emmett Till one.

Dana A. Williams 9:43

There is a play that she had put in Albany called Dreaming Emmett.

Traci Thomas 9:46

Got it. I was like, I have not read that novel. I was like, I've never even heard of them. Okay, okay. Got it play. I also think, like, what's interesting in this one that she writes like in the contemporary so much? Of it is rooted in historic, recent historical events. Like, she doesn't say it for sure, but I think the Atlanta Child Murders are obviously, you know, referenced through what happens to Adam. Like, that's what I was reminded of, and also the McMartin preschool trials, both of those sort of, like, recent historic events, I felt like were kind of at least they they were brought forward to me as I was reading them, and I thought that was interesting too, that even as she's in the present, she's still like calling back to the recent history.

Dana A. Williams 10:32

I think so it's interesting that you said that, because she was also just about done with Toni Cade bombards, these bones are not my child, which is the story that bombard tells about the Atlanta Child Murders.

Traci Thomas 10:47

So like so many great authors have tried to wreck him with that event, right? There's like leaving Atlanta, obviously that what's the James Baldwin has the like evidence of things unseen.

Dana A. Williams 11:01

I mean, it was a traumatic experience. Yeah, I was thinking of leaving Atlanta too by tre Jones, and I can remember talking to tre about it, and she was a student at Spelman at the time, and she said every time anyone thought anything about a child, like if a child was missing for seconds, minutes, everybody panic stop doing what they're doing, because it was like we have to protect everyone. I think it had this impact on people, the uncertainty, the unpredictability of it, just the devastation of it. I think it lingered in people's minds for a while, which is also probably why Morrison agreed to pull that novel together for Toni Cade Bambara, even after bombard was deceased, because Bambara was on the ground in Atlanta when it was happening.

Traci Thomas 11:48

Yeah, I think I just this book made me wish that Toni Morrison wrote more contemporary novels, because I have so many questions that came up for me as I was reading this one that I was like, Is this because it's a contemporary novel, or is this because where she was in her career? But like, for example, I thought the prose and this were super I use the word lean to describe them, compared to some of her other prose that she's known for. And I was thinking, is that because she that's how she's approaching contemporary language, or is that some sort of, you know, just something she wanted to practice, or something like, I just was so curious about her mindset in writing in the present.

Dana A. Williams 12:31

I agree. I think it's a really good question that I don't recall anybody asking her in an interview. But I know scholars have thought like, is Morrison getting soft on us. You know, as time is progressing, because you can actually get through this book and one or two sittings. It's like 150 No, 170 or so pages, which is also short for Morrison book.

Traci Thomas 12:54

Still is pretty short, right?

Dana A. Williams 12:57

Yeah, but Sula doesn't read like this one. I No, no, no, no. Sula does not this is really interesting and deceptively so, because the story is still incredibly layered and really complex and begins to pick up, I think, on a number of the themes that we see in some of the other books.

Traci Thomas 13:15

Yeah. So let me tell folks who haven't read the book or who just need a refresher, a quick kind of plot summary we start so the book shifts perspectives throughout. And we start with sweetness, who is a mother. She has she's very fair skinned. She has a baby who is extremely dark. It is unsettling to her. She names the baby Lula Ann Bridewell. Next, we meet Lula Anne, who now goes by bride. She is a she works in the beauty industry. She has her own beauty line, you girl, which I love, right? You. Girl, we're going to talk about all the characters names and bride has a boyfriend who is just dumped her. He says, You are not the woman I want, which we will talk about that as well. Bride, then is sort of distraught by this. We meet her best girlfriend, this white girl with dreads named Brooklyn. Bride just she is preparing to go do this thing, which is she's going to A J A prison on the release date of this woman who she calls the lady monster, and she's going to bring her beauty products. And we sort of don't know what's going on. She goes to the woman, she gives her the beauty products. The woman beats the shit out of her iconic Toni Morrison moment, where you think you're gonna get this, like, dramatic back and forth, and instead you get like, three sentences, just like she kicked her ass done, open the door, throws the sweater, yeah, oh yeah. Then opens door and throws, like, the beating isn't enough, it's not enough, and the shoe that moment says so much so. And basically, as the book goes on, we'll go deeper into everything, but as the book goes on, we find out. But bride as a child, was the person who can help to convict this woman of sexual abuse in an elementary school. Bride then is distraught over the loss of her boyfriend. She is set out. She becomes convinced she wants to find him, and that is what she goes to do. So that's sort of the that's sort of the lean bones of the plot. I will not tell you the ending right now, but we will talk about all the twists and turns. Okay, that's always my least favorite part of doing these episodes. I feel like I can never, oh, well, think I did okay. I It's, like, my big insecurity. I hate doing it. Like the first, like, year and a half we did the show. I just would never do it. And I was like, I probably should tell people what the book's about. Anyways. Okay, so let's just start with the like perspective changes throughout the book. I find that to be really interesting. We get to hear from all these different characters that also felt newer to me. I know she does something similar in a mercy. There's like the perspective changes in that way. But in that book, if I'm not mistaken, she doesn't tell you whose chapter you're in. This one, she's like sweetness or bride. But then later she just gives us a symbol at the start of some of the chapters. What do you make of that?

Dana A. Williams 16:22

I thought it was interesting too, that this is the first time that we know who's speaking, because she does so many things with narrators. And yes, like, whether or not a narrator is a reliable child, traditional, like, she's always just completely thrown off the rules for narrating. So I appreciate it that the chapters had these headings, and so we knew whose perspective. And then I feel like she set us up, because we get, like further towards it, like into the book, and then it's like, Wait a minute. Wait a minute, who's talking? I need to know who's talking. So that was kind of quintessential Morrison to me, just saying, all right, different people may be talking or there are different perspectives here that are a little bit blended. And so the symbol, I think, becomes like, maybe it's the reader who gets to interpret, because they're also strategically placed in place, in at the start of chapters where there is some ambiguity, where there are things that we know and don't know. Just as a quick example, we don't know whether or not Sophia is guilty. We assume she is because bride narrates her all along as the monster woman, as you said, but then it's like, wait a minute, is she telling the truth? Then Sophia doesn't deny it, and then bride gets all of these rewards. So by the time we get to it, where it's just a symbol, we have to begin to figure out for ourselves whether or not she's guilty of this or something else, whether or not we care, like all of those things I think are mixed in and assembled, to me, represents the reader's opportunity to step into the space and begin to make some decisions for yourself.

Traci Thomas 17:54

Oh, I love that. Like this invitation I felt like, I mean, I took this note extremely early on. And I can't remember what exact moment made me take the note, but I wrote down, these are all unreliable narrators, right? I think it was something Brooklyn said where I was like, I think Brooklyn was the first one where I was like, no, no. And then I think I was like, Okay, wait a second, like, because she does such a good job of and I, we talked about Shakespeare last time, and I feel like, what Toni Morrison does, that Shakespeare also does so well, is present extremely clean arguments that each person in her novels is clearly fighting for something and wants the reader to believe them like that they are having this argument, or that they are justifying these actions in a way. And I felt like that was so clear in this book. You know, we hear from sweetness so many times, and she's like, I know, I know you think it's bad, but I'm just trying to prepare her. Or you hear, you know, Brooklyn say, you know, I know that he wanted to have sex with me, so I just was giving him the opportunity to prove, like, what a low down dog he was right. And it's like these, almost like reality TV confessionals, where each character is sort of presenting their best version of their worst moments. And I thought that was really, really fun, like, because I do think she sort of puts it up out like, puts it out up front in a way that she doesn't always. Sometimes she sort of wants you to figure out what's going on with the narrators. And in this one, I think she sort of was like, no, no, I'm gonna let you know who's talking. I'm gonna let you know exactly what they're saying. But your job is to figure out, do you believe it?

Dana A. Williams 19:37

Yep, and I think it goes along with that. Is the narrator reliable or unreliable, especially when the character tells you, in almost an aside what they're thinking. So there are these layers in there. As we were talking about the it's accessible and deceptively simple in the sense that Brooklyn, for instance, says, I have to admit, I was thinking about taking her job. We don't typically get that from a Morrison novel. Now, the reader would typically say, if we had known that Brooklyn was second in charge of the company and that she is there for Brad, but she we would also probably say she's also gonna be angling for her job, but we don't yet know exactly what her role is in the company, because she's only described as her as brides, very close friend, the one person she can trust. So I think they're all of these little nuggets in here, like, can you really trust her?

Traci Thomas 20:31

I mean, anytime someone says the one person you can trust, I'm like, Oh, can't I think I did take a note that said, Can't trust her. Can't trust her, not for second, which I also love. I there. I think thodi Morrison does such a good job of like, finding the humor also in these moments, of like the things that people say and how they say them, and sort of kind of wink wink nodding at us through these moments, which, you know, I love. But again, that's very Shakespearean to have these soliloquies in which the person tells the truth to the audience, you know, like I had a Shakespeare teacher who would always say, these characters don't lie. You have to just take them for what's for what they say. So even when they say, they say one thing in one moment, and then the next moment they say the next thing, they truly believe both of those things in those exact moments. And I think he said there were only two actual lies ever told, and one's in Othello, and I think one is in Richard the Third. But the rest, they might tell a lie to other characters, but they tell you, I'm going to lie, or they say, Look what I just did. Did you see how I just lied? And so that that's sort of what this reminded me of too, of like none of these people are lying. They're all telling you exactly their truth, but it's that their truth might not be someone else's truth.

Dana A. Williams 21:46

That's a really good read. I'm gonna have to pay attention to that, because I think you're right. I mean, I'm thinking about it from you're making me think about the way that Morrison is attentive to theater and attentive to performance, and so these characters really are kind of performers.

Traci Thomas 22:01

Yeah, I mean, I can't stop thinking about this, like, the reality TV confessional vibe of it, right? You know, it's like, and then, I don't know if you ever watch The Bachelor, but they always do these confessionals. And then it's like, oh, then you have to tell them your trauma. And like, each character eventually, like, tells us their trauma to kind of, like, win us over or whatever. And it's like, oh, I don't know if this is the right date to do it right. And like, some of the women will tell their trauma on like, date two, and everyone's like, whoa, too early. And then some people, you waited too long to open up, like, he's not gonna like you now. And I felt that, like, in some weird way, that that was in conversation with this book.

Dana A. Williams 22:36

Oh, I can totally see that. And I mean, because she's also paying attention to what's happening in the world in real time and trying to figure out how to write reality. I would not be surprised at all if that kind of mindless TV was in the background so she could understand, like, how are people thinking in this kind of contemporary moment? Because she was, just by and large, a very serious person, and to write a book that is not as serious, but still very like to have the depth there. Yeah, I can totally see the transfer of structure of background, yeah.

Traci Thomas 23:11

Okay, let's talk about some of the, like, darker depth elements of this book. This, I mean, this book is seriously concerned with child abuse, sexual assault, violence against children. Are three sort of anchor characters, bride, Booker, who's the boy ex boyfriend, and then rain, who is a child that bride. So when bride goes looking for Booker, she gets in a car accident in this, like rural part of California, they find this. Family finds her, and they have a child that they have found named rain, who's also been, you know, sexually abused. So the three sort of different parts of it is rain has been abused. Her mother was prostituting her, was using her as a sex worker. As a child, a young child, the family thinks she's like six when they find her, right? I think that's what they said.

Dana A. Williams 24:06

But they don't know for sure, but even the possibility of being six, being that young and her presence of mind, because the reason that her mother puts her out, as you know, is because at one of the times that her mother has, you know, put her with a male partner or a male assaulter, I should say, she decides that she's going to bite it, and then her mother is angry at her and has to give the man his money back. So she has enough awareness at whatever age, somewhere around six, that we think, to know that she does not want to be in this situation, and that there is a way out, right?

Traci Thomas 24:43

And that she hates her mom. She said, If I saw my mom, I cut her head off, right? Yeah. So that's so that's one version of it. The second version is, bride is a witness to a sexual assault from of a child by her landlord. I think his name. Is Mr. Literally, and she also is a witness to on in the judicial system. She, she is a witness to the trial of Sophia Huxley, aka the lady monster. And she her testimony helps to convict this woman who is part of an alleged three person child sex abuse ring happening at her elementary school, and she says that she witnesses this, and then that puts Sophia behind bars for, I think, 15 years, and then the third person is Booker, and Booker's older brother Adam, is abducted. I believe, at 10 years old, when Booker's eight and he they can't find him. And then eventually they find his remains buried. And then they go on to find out that the person who had done this had abducted, I think, four or five other little boys he had, this is graphic. I'm sorry, people he had chained them up, had abused them and had cut off their penises and kept them in a box. So we have these sort of three different relationships to child sexual abuse and trauma. And I'm wondering, sort of broadly, what you make of her wanting to approach this topic, but also more narrowly, wondering why she set it up with these sort of three different experiences of the abuse.

Dana A. Williams 26:36

It's a good question. I of course connected it back again to The Bluest Eye where we see so pay at church and we, of course, see picola assault by her father. To some degree, I think it is an attempt to bring to the fore conversations that tend to be taboo so that people can feel comfortable because Booker's frustration with bride, at least in part, is because bride does not shout to the world that Mr. Lee is assaulting this kid who is clearly traumatized. She hears him. She hears the little boy crying. Looks out of the window, sees the little boy, after having heard him whimper, Mr. Lee has his pants down. Booker is frustrated that she only tells her mother in classic Morrison style. It's really complicated, though, because we know it's bad. There's no question of whether or not this is bad, whether or not this is problematic. And bride is clear that it's problematic. She tells her mother what she sees. And her mother is angry, because her mother is thinking, if this man knows that you know this, he's going to put us out. And there's no mixed race housing, nowhere else for us to go. So as frustrated as her mother might otherwise be, and as protective of her own child as her mother might otherwise be, part of that protection also means stay quiet so that we have somewhere to live, because that's its own sense of protection. Bribe does not tell her that she is recognized, that it is Mr. That she knows this necessarily, because Mr. Lee looks up and sees her. But remember that little nugget where Brad says it looks like Mr. Lee by the head, but it can't be Mr. Lee because Mr. Lee is nice, or he's Stern, like he's like he's all about that business, like he's not a monster, right? Like the other people. So I think we're seeing these representations because it's something that is happening in the culture, happening in the world, happening with far too much frequency, but it still is taboo subject, and Morrison really, really does traffic in taboo a lot. The one that I think I paid a little bit more attention to this time is also Hannah tells Queen that her father has--

Traci Thomas 29:12

Oh right.

Dana A. Williams 29:13

Touched her.

Traci Thomas 29:13

Hannah. So Queen is Booker's favorite aunt, and she sort of he falls out with his family over his grief, and they're sort of moving on after Adam's death and recovery of his body and everything. And she sort of tells him like you're allowed to grieve as much and as long as you want. And he sort of latches on to that, and she becomes like the one family member that he stays close to and she has multiple husbands, multiple children. All of her children are with her other husbands, and her sort of favorite child, Hannah, the doctor or med student, comes to her and says that her dad has been sexually abusing her. Okay, carry on.

Dana A. Williams 29:56

Yeah, that that complicates it in the sense that. We love Queen by this point, we think that she is an untraditional woman, of course, but we're also concerned that Queen isn't protecting people. So it seems to turn out that everybody, like people, don't protect the child in their immediate way. They then try to find another way to level that protection, because that's what bride does with Sophia. Like I didn't say anything about Mr. Lee, and I didn't protect this kid that I didn't know, although I knew it was wrong and he was in pain. But I'm gonna find a way to deal with it here. So everybody is finding ways to respond to something that they couldn't respond to in real time because of the trauma, which, I think, again, speaks very clearly to the end of the book where, you know, bride's mom, sweetness, says, you know, she won't make the mistakes that I made, but she's gonna make some mistakes. God has Right, right?

Traci Thomas 30:51

Do you okay? I had a question that I didn't I'm not sure if I got it quite right. Is the child, the child who she sees with Mr. Lee is not the same child like the trial is not related to Sophia. So where does the idea come because, okay, here's the big twist, Sophia didn't do it guys. She didn't molest any children. Bride lied on the stand because she knew it would make her mom proud, and her mom would show her love, and her mom, because of her black skin, had shunned her and treated her poorly. The mother says it's because she was protecting her from the world, but also, the mother also tells us that she feels shame about having this very black child when she comes from a very fair skinned family. Where did the idea come from that she should even, like, get involved in this trial? Or, like, that's the part I didn't understand. How did she come to be part of Sofia's trial in the first place?

Dana A. Williams 31:53

The novel doesn't tell us this explicitly, but my kind of read of it is, interestingly enough, Sophia is one of the few people who have been nice to her, because bride is bullied right at school, and my sense was, oh man, miss, Sophia was trying to protect you, and then you turned on her. So they were unclear about Sofia's involvement, but at a certain point, because Bri is in the school and has been like, familiar with the experience. I think she just gets pulled into somebody has to testify because no one else will, in part, because no one else has actually seen it, because it doesn't really happen, at least not with Sophia, right?

Traci Thomas 32:36

And then, and then sweetness uses her like, good job on the witness stand. To be like, see all my being tough really paid off. Like it's her proof. Like she knows how to talk to people, because she says all the other kids were like, crying and like, couldn't get a word in. They were being little babies. But my daughter, and I think you know that's like, do you remember in your first read when you realized that bride was lying?

Dana A. Williams 33:06

Probably when Sophia starts to beat her up? Because I'm thinking, There's no way she's not doing this, if she is actually that she's beating bride up, and no way that bride's not fighting back. This is guilt, right? The only guilt that would do this would be that there isn't either complete truth to this or any truth to this.

Traci Thomas 33:30

I wrote it down. I don't, I can't, I don't remember what was happening. I've took a note on page 31 that said, sweetness is proud of her after she testified. It's a lie, right? That's what I wrote down. There was just something about the way they were talking about it that I was just like, there's no way this really happened. And I think maybe it's because, like, she went to the jail like that, just it just felt off to me from the beginning. And so I thought that was interesting too, that Toni Morrison, who is not, who is not afraid to surprise her readers, right? Like she will just be like, Oh, by the way, here's this piece of information that you didn't know that happened. I thought it was interesting that she was sort of leaving pretty clear to me. It felt pretty clear breadcrumbs from very early on, because the whole scene of like, where she says to book her, it's a lie, it's a lie, it's a lie, is very late in the book. So I don't know. I thought I did. I did feel like she she sort of wanted us to know. She wasn't like, you have to know. But I think she sort of was like, doubt, doubt this. That's right, events, yeah, let's take a quick break, and then I want to come back and talk about about bride a little more. Okay, we are back. I want to talk about bride. She is our protagonist. One of the things that we find out is she. She after high school, or whatever. She goes out into the world. She tries to get jobs. She can't get any job. She's working in the mail room. You know? She has to work her way up. Every other girl gets a promotion before her blah, blah, blah. Then she goes to this sort of stylist, man who's like, all white you can only wear white for the rest of your life. Limited accessories, no makeup. You just have to be black and wear bright white, and this one sort of external choice transforms her into the most beautiful woman in the world. What do you make of this?

Dana A. Williams 35:40

I think we needed something to have her move from someone who has been shunned who is an ugly duckling of sorts for most of her life. We needed something that would explain the shift, because by the time we know her, she's kind of together and she's stunning and she's J Dean es a la tar baby, and we want to know like, how did you go from not being loved by your mother to someone who is really using your beauty to your advantage? So having Jerry come in as that point of intervention made sense to me, and then, like having him be a person who was just very practical, because she goes to him, she's like, I can't figure out. Like, what's going on? They promoted me the first time basically because I was the only person who knew what I was doing, as opposed to because they thought that I had earned this position. They didn't have a choice. But she wants to have this moment of self empowerment, like, what can I do? He says, All right, you only wear white, like, take full advantage of this. So I think having her perform her beauty so that people can see the beauty that's all already there is really important. And then in the end, we have to see with her, and she has to come to realize that that beauty doesn't matter at all. And that's, I think, the role that Booker plays, that you could be the most stunning, most beautiful, most provocative, the person who is you know, gazed at the most. And until you work those things out, your beauty isn't enough.

Traci Thomas 37:18

Right, right? And what ends up happening is, after Booker leaves her, and we get this refrain of you not the woman I want, over and over and over, she starts to have weird things physically happen to her body. So first her earring holes close up, which were the earring ear piercing she got after the trial, after testifying against Sophia, her mom was so proud of her, she took her to get her ears pierced. Then or No. First, sorry. First, she loses her pubic hair, then the ear whole piercings close up. Then later, when she's with the family after the car accident, her her chest becomes flat. She loses her breasts, so she sort of starts to revert back physically to being a child. She thinks it's because Booker left her. Is that what you think?

Dana A. Williams 38:12

I think I gotta agree to some degree like his leaving her is she doesn't know it yet, but her his leaving is a part of her lying and her need to kind of reclaim the truth of her childhood. So I think that it is part of what's happening, because once they're back together, the things start to come back together again. He gives her earrings. She feels her ear and realizes that the hole is back. She is with him when people are gawking at her chest, and she looks down and she's like, Oh, my boobs are back. And the only kind of twist in there, because at one point remember, she also thinks, gee, I haven't had a period in two to three months, so I'm not menstruating either anymore, but by the end, she's pregnant. So is she not menstruating because she's pregnant already, or does it happen after? But the mystery of like these disappearing parts, the first time I read it, I was like, What are you doing? What's happening here.

Traci Thomas 39:21

I was like, Toni Morrison magic here.

Dana A. Williams 39:26

What's happening here is, like, the baby, but love it coming back. Like, how do we but then I also think about, like, how fiction requires us to just suspend belief and figure out, like, why the person is doing what they're doing. So the symbolism of going back to her childhood. I just let it ride at that.

Traci Thomas 39:44

Okay, if, because I have a different theory, but if we are to believe that the everything is tied to Booker, and I want to hear the theory, so though I'll tell you, I will I won't, I won't. If we're to believe that all this is tied to Booker, then what is she saying? Yeah. Yeah.

Dana A. Williams 40:00

Like, this is interesting because it's one of the reasons that I really identify with Morrison in the way that she has male and female characters interacting with each other. Like, right?

Traci Thomas 40:11

Oh, I remember you mentioned this. Yeah. Say more about it.

Dana A. Williams 40:15

So important in most Morrison novels for there to be some synergy between men and women and community. I think Sula is probably the exception in the sense that, you know, Sula and Nell fall out because Sula has slept with Nell's husband, and then in when Sula is dying, Nell realizes that she wasn't missing her husband at all. She was actually missing her friend. So it really is that kind of female friendship that is at the core. But in so many of the other novels, the men and the women are kind of like lockstep. Now I found it highly problematic, obviously, that even as bride initiates the violence, she hits Booker, but he that's her, knocks her down. She comes back and hits him over the head with a bottle. So like the domestic violence was highly problematic for me, obviously, but the fact that she can come back into herself in relation to community, if you will, because by then, she's actually more of a full person. This isn't just about her and Booker. It's about her self affirmation. Yeah, so it landed okay with me. I was more concerned with the abuse or with the with the physical violence between them, than I was with the fact that, why does she have to Why does she need him to get her right back right?

Traci Thomas 41:35

I did not like that at all, that idea, but how I had read it and until and until bride says to us, this has happened to me since Booker left, I had a different working theory, which is that this started to happen to her after Sophia is released from prison, and it's not until she admits the lie to Booker that Things start to come back. Those things are closely related, because Booker leaves her because he knows she's gonna go and visit Sophia, right like, this happens right before, and he says to her later, like, why are you obsessed with this child abuser? And then that's when she's like, I'm not. I lied. And so in my mind, Booker's leaving is tied like Booker's leaving actually, technically happens after sort of or sorry, it happens before the start of the transformation. It's like she goes to see the woman, and from that moment until she admits the lie. So that's how I had read it. And in that way, then I don't have to believe that Toni Morrison thinks that women are only complete, fuel humans when they are reunited with their boyfriends, which is a simplification, but I do feel like that is sort of the message if you believe the booker version. So that's how I had read it.

Dana A. Williams 42:53

And I think there is some support for that. I think it can be both, because I do think, I mean, if we're thinking about Morrison, I'm telling you, believes in male female relationship. She just really does. And Sofia's speaking towards the end of the book, I think supports the notion that it takes Sofia's wellness. We got to know that Sophia is okay before Brian can be okay. And we do know that Sophia is okay.

Traci Thomas 43:22

And I think the like male female relationship piece of it, I think that that like that Toni Morrison's interest in that comes through in the sort of mutual grief release that they have, like that they both have to let go of this thing that's been haunting them, and then that's what allows them to have like, a pure like, not pure, but like that allows them to have a stable relationship, to all intents to work together, to be together by Queen's bedside, like all of those things happen after they both release these things that have sort of been percolating inside of them for the majority of their lives, since they were both about eight. I think so. I don't my theory isn't to negate that. There is some that she's making a message about men and women and like being able to communicate and all of these things. But my my interpretation, is more about Sofia's physical body manifestations like that her own. Her body is hers. It is not his, you know, like it is not controlled by him. So that's sort of that. That's how I read it. And I had the theory again before she even mentioned that she noticed the changes after he left, because it's like the changes start happening, and then she decides that that's why, and then that's when she goes after him. Don't make I don't know. Makes sense. I don't know, but I just my theory makes me like Toni Morrison more.

Dana A. Williams 44:49

She definitely, Morrison is definitely interested in relationships as ways to get us to deal with the things that we don't deal with, whether they're male, male, male, female. Male, male like whatever. Because if you think about Song of Solomon, milkman and guitar have to work that thing out. Both of them have their own trauma before they can get to the point where they are relatively free. And as I mentioned before, Sula and Nell so people like the most important relationships reveal something to us. And I think, Yeah, that happens in this book as well.

Traci Thomas 45:23

Earlier this year, I think I told you this, we read the goodness speech that she gave at the Harvard Divinity School and and I think that that also informed, sort of my reading of this, and also as as what you're saying, of like figuring out our relationships to one another and ourselves to kind of continue to be able to build and move forward. And that is sort of her work towards goodness, right? She talks in the essay about how she believes in fiction we need to have goodness prevail over evil. And I feel like this book certainly is interested in these ideas, which I think is probably why I read the fairy tale thing, right? Like in the end, goodness prevails over over all these other traumas and bad things.

Dana A. Williams 46:11

And we need that in this moment. I mean, I think I'm sometimes frustrated with stories that tie things neatly up in a bow. This one isn't quite in a bow.

Traci Thomas 46:22

No, it's just like a knot.

Dana A. Williams 46:26

It's a really interesting not that sweetness tells us is going to be knotty for the kid, right for the unborn child. But I think we do need something, especially in this time where that we're living in. And if I'm not mistaken, she's writing this after the Trump presidency, the first Trump presidency as well.

Traci Thomas 46:45

We think right before right isn't this 2015 this novel.

Dana A. Williams 46:50

I'll have to that's a good question. So all right, but I think the thing that we have to think about is we gotta find goodness in ways that evil cannot dominate, because if you are not careful, it's very easy to think that evil has taken over.

Traci Thomas 47:07

Yeah, it's 2015, okay, yeah, no, I think that's right. And I maybe, maybe, because it's, I know it's her last one, and even though you said at the beginning, she was not concerned with making it in conversations with other ones. This one feels so in conversation with all the other ones. It feels like she's taking elements from whether it's the perspective shifts in a mercy or sort of these, these haunting past tragedies, like in beloved these relationships, obviously, like the blackness, the colorism, also, like you mentioned, J Dean from tar baby, of course, I could see bride and her as Kindred, you know, I could see them in a photo spread together, right? Like and also her rough relationship. What? God, no, I can't remember his name, son, son, yes, like their physical because they have all those physical altercations throughout that book. So I couldn't help but sort of see the past readings tie in. Okay, something we have to talk about is the names. She has the best names, yes, and this book is no different. We have Lula and Bridewell, aka bride who, for some time in her life, just goes by Anne Bridewell. Then we have sweetness, the mother, who likes to be called sweetness because she does not want this dark, black baby child to call her mom. She doesn't want people to know that that the she's the mother. We have Booker, who, in and of itself, is a great name, but also he is one of, I think, seven kids, and they have ABC names, Allah bridgerton, right? So there's Adam, there's Booker, I can't remember, but some of them like they're some of them are like biblical and then some of them are black activist names. We have white girl with dreads Brooklyn, iconic naming Queen olive, a not to be confused with olive. And then we have Sophia Huxley, the lady monster. Those are sort I mean, there's other peripheral characters, but those are sort of the big ones. What do you? What do you? What can you tell us about the names?

Dana A. Williams 49:18

Morrison has been really playing with names since The Bluest Eye. And I think it can be tied to the way that black people really put a premium on naming.

Traci Thomas 49:30

Yes.

Dana A. Williams 49:31

As a practice in black culture, it reflects who people see you as. And I think that that is in the US. But then also, like in many African cultures, the naming ceremony is a whole thing, because they have to wait to see who you are as a person, and then the name has to reflect your character. So I think it's a derivation or a retention there that we have to get to know who people are, because the names have to reflect something about who they are. Mm. Mm, hmm. So I think with the and I thought the story early on about sweetness and why she has to go with sweetness is just so fascinating, like not wanting anyone to hear by call her mother or mom in public, but also not wanting her to call her by her first name, because that would be like disrespectful, or no, not just her lady or like there is sweetness is something that she wants, and it's also something that could be endearing to people who didn't know any better from this person who refuses to touch her child

Traci Thomas 50:36

And who's so obsessed with what everyone else is thinking of her, yeah, right. I mean, I think that's what she and bride have in common. They're so obsessed with how they're seen in the world. And, you know, I have to imagine that bride learned that from her mother, yeah. Oh, and, and, I don't know if I said this, but we also have rain. Who goes by Jason, yeah, yeah. We should talk about rain, rain the character, but also rain from the sky is happens in this book in some of the most pivotal moments. Obviously, when the family picks up rain, it's raining, pouring rain. When Booker leaves his family, it's pouring rain. And then Booker says, The day that he sees bride, it's raining, and so there's this, I don't know, is it too obvious to be like, it's like a biblical christening, or like, I think, washing away.

Dana A. Williams 51:34

And also, for a storm, she's using the scene shifts, because I just keep thinking about this book with Morrison in the kind of performance element that I think we don't see as plainly. At least I don't see as plainly otherwise, like this book is a culmination, as we've suggested, of her whole life's work, her whole kind of intellectual growth and development. So the time that she spent on the stage as an actress, the way that you change. I mean, change a scene or shift the scene is like put thunder in the background. So right there. But then, if I'm not mistaken, I think it's a conversation she has with fair Griffin at the 92nd street y where she says she's fascinated by weather, literally, when it's cold, like just the fact that weather changes goes back to that notion of goodness, and like, how the world is and how the world will take care of itself if we just let it right. So I think rain is there as this kind of method of protection. She's, I mean, problem, and like, has her own problems, but then also finds, helps provide Bride with some sense of comfort, and then just reminds us the kind of humanity of this young girl who's also been accosted, but who can be a really good person as well, and who can be a comfort to some people. I really liked rain as a character, and I wanted to hear and see more of her. And that's one of those characters where you're like, Oh, if Martha had written another novel, would rain have shown up differently, and by that, like the type of person she is. And I thought, all right, so we kind of see rain in Paradise and the women at the convent, and we kind of see rain in Denver and beloved. So okay, I'll be okay with rain. I was just like, I want more rain. I want mom. I want more of her.

Traci Thomas 53:21

Yeah, I love how, after we, like, we have the scene with rain and bride. We get Rain's perspective, and she's like, my black lady's gone, right? I love it.

Dana A. Williams 53:32

I love my black lady. And that's how children would really represent.

Traci Thomas 53:36

Totally, yeah, totally again. It's like Toni Morrison's sense of humor. And to your point about, you know, the like, back to the goodness and the evil of it. I think one of the other things that she's like, sort of working through, is the vengeance part of it. Like, how much the desire for vengeance kind of comes up, especially with Booker, but also in some ways, with Brooklyn, not necessarily vengeance for her, but like she wants so badly. What bride has she wants, the guy she wants, the job she wants, like that, there's this like, real want for something different to be true. And I guess that's probably true for all of them.

Dana A. Williams 54:23

I agree her whiteness doesn't give her what we have come to think whiteness should give her. So she's envious of this black person and then Booker, wanting some vengeance for his brother's death is completely understandable, but it consumes him to the point where he can't even live his life Right. He's He's upset that his parents are trying to forget, but--

Traci Thomas 54:49

Right.

Dana A. Williams 54:50

He won't live right. And it reminds me I remember the day, or maybe a couple of days after Morrison. Her transition. My nephew might have been like, seven or eight or something, and he was like, Oh, Mom says like you were working on this book on Toni Morrison, and that you've met her, and that you're going to be sad because she's gone. But there's this one quote from her that I just think she would want you to remember sometimes you gotta, like, put down, they lay down that shit. Like, sometimes you go, Yeah, down it lays down, like, the that kind of thing. Then you can fly, or whatever that one so, of course, he just wanted to curse, right, right? That was his. That was his point. But love him, yeah. Meets, he's such a great, like, a little baby adult, but he obviously, I'm admiring the fact that he's googling to figure out, like, the perfect Tony Morrison quote to make Auntie feel better. And he's like, sometimes you gotta put that shit down that weighs you down or something. So that's how I read Booker as well. Like, Booker, you gotta put that shit down. Like, you gotta let Adam go so you can live.

Traci Thomas 55:58

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, as to go, he's got, I mean, and even Queen says that to him. She's like, I didn't really think you were going to take what I said quite so literally, because she tells him, like, hold on to him. Keep him for yourself as long as you need to, kind of, you know, saying, like, maybe your family's going to move on, but like, if you still are feeling the grief, like you can still have that she didn't realize he was gonna put Adam on his back and carry him as his cross to bear for the rest of his life. That's right?

Dana A. Williams 56:28

And Adam doesn't even want that anymore, right? We would imagine like Adam doesn't need to be carried. Adam wants to be married.

Traci Thomas 56:34

Adam wants to be Yeah, let go, released to go. Yeah, no. 1,000% we're so close to being out of time. We should quickly talk about the title. We usually talk about the title. The title comes up brilliantly similar. Again, this has reminded me of a mercy the very end, the last here's the last paragraph, two paragraphs. It's sweetness. She's talking about Booker and bride about to have a child, and she says, listen to me, you are about to find out what it takes, how the world is, how it works, how it changes when you are a parent. Good luck, and God help the child. I mean, it's just, it's perfect in the book, but it's also just a perfect like sign offline, from Toni Morrison to the world, right? Like, person is my last novel. Yep, this is for all of you. You're gonna find out how it is. Good luck. God help all of you.

Dana A. Williams 57:29

Yep, and I imagine there was a lot of conversation about it, because how many of us like messed it up and did the Billie Holiday? God Bless the Child. Instead of saying, God Help the Child,

Traci Thomas 57:42

I keep calling it God save the child.

Dana A. Williams 57:45

Exactly, I remember you're saying that before. So I think part of the choice here too was it's going to be memorable, but it's also going to be familiar. Memorable and familiar go together, but like, God helps the child helps us to think, like, all right, this is really going to be about the next generation needing good luck, literally, good luck and God help the child.

Traci Thomas 58:10

It's Pitch Perfect. It is. And I feel like what's interesting is sweetness has so many of the lines in the book that frame the book. She starts the book off with, like, It's not my fault, which I think is the general refrain from every character we meet, any bad thing that happened, not my fault, not my fault. And then she also has the line that, I think is sort of sums up the books themes the best, which is what you do to children matters, and they might never forget. And so I think that's also interesting, that she, again, has the last word this, good luck, and God help the child. Yep.

Dana A. Williams 58:41

Now it's a book in that, you know, this is the only book where the dedication is to the reader.

Traci Thomas 58:47

I to, you know, what do you make of that I see? This is what I'm saying. Maybe she knew this will be your last one. She's really saying, Good luck, guys, exactly. I'll miss you. I live a beautiful life, and I'll see y'all on the other side. Me and Adam are gonna be together, Resting, resting. Yeah. I mean, one of the things we do sometimes is talk about if we think a book would make a good movie or TV show. And I have to say, of all of her novels that I've read, this is the one that I think would be the best adapted.

Dana A. Williams 59:21

Me too. I was thinking the same thing. Now. I was wondering, is it because it's contemporary and we could connect with it more readily? But I thought the same thing.

Traci Thomas 59:31

I think it's very visual. I also think like, like, there's so much like visual language, but I also think, because it's sort of sparse, there's room to make it into a movie Sula or Beloved. It's just so dense the book is doing so much work that to translate that for the screen, I think is really challenging, right? Same with The Bluest Eye. It's. This book is, like I said at the top, very lean, and so I think there's room to see it. There's room to see these characters, to watch them. I think there's a lot I think this would be a really fun thing for actors to do. Like, I think the characters lend a lot of space for the actors. So I don't know, but like, I was thinking, like, I thought it would be great if Ruth Negaa played sweetness.

Dana A. Williams 1:00:24

Oh, we were doing the same thing, I'm telling you. I was like, who's gonna be the character? Who's gonna be okay? Who did you come up with? Well, for bride, I got stuck, but I immediately thought Gabrielle Union, but then I thought she's not dark enough. And then I came up with Jody Turner Smith, all right, I think Jodi Turner Smith, I can't remember the young lady's name, who, you know, the model who was everywhere for the longest period of time, but Lupita?

Traci Thomas 1:00:45

Oh yeah, Lupita Nyong'o.

Dana A. Williams 1:00:46

Lupita might work if we had her, like, with no makeup, like the right lighting, in all white. But then I also shifted and said no, not just a movie, like a mini series or like a Ava DuVernay, Queen Sugar how? So we get to see them for extended periods of time, and you need to be with them along and again, because you see the clear framing, but there's enough in there to be able to breathe into it in really interesting ways.

Traci Thomas 1:01:12

Yes, we need this Hollywood. Take our advice. Do this one. Don't do Sula. Don't do the Bluest Eye, is it not help the child. That's the one. Okay, everybody. This has been amazing. Listen to the end of today's episode to find out our book club pick for August, Dana. Dana wrote a book. It's called Toni at random. Well, she's written multiple books, but this her latest one is called Tony at random. It's all about Toni Morrison's editorship at Random House. Go get the book if you didn't read. God help the child with us. Go read it. But Dana, thank you so much. This was amazing.

Dana A. Williams 1:01:44

Thank you. Thank you. It's been like, a really, really wonderful time reading this book again and thinking about it out loud with you. And thank you so much for, like, all the ways that you help us to continue to read and think about what's happening in the world.

Traci Thomas 1:01:56

Oh, thank you. Okay, everybody else, we will see you in the Stacks. All right, y'all that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you again to Dana A. Williams for joining the show. I'd also like to say a huge thank you to Courtney Noble for making today's episode possible. Okay, now it's the moment you've all been waiting for our book club pick for August is Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. We will be discussing Braiding Sweetgrass on the podcast on Wednesday, August 27 so be sure to read along and tune in next week to find out who our guest will be for the conversation. If you love this show, if you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join the Stacks Pack and check out my newsletter at tracithomas.substack.com, make sure you're subscribed to the stacks. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify, please leave us a rating and a review for more from the Stacks. Follow us on social media at the stacks pod on Instagram, Threads and Tiktok, and check out our website at thestackspodcast.com. Today's episode of the stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Wy'Kia Frelot. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight, and our theme music is from Tagirijus The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas

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