Following a vote by an elite group of authors, editors, and critics of American letters, Toni Morrison's 1987 novel Beloved has been named the best work of American fiction in the last 25 years by the New York Times Book Review.
According to the Times, their Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus contacted 124 prominent members of the literati to get some highly-qualified input. The resulting vote gave Beloved a clear win. Participants were allowed one vote for a single title rather than an author but there were no other guidelines or restrictions. Although Beloved won handily, the most votes for a single author went to Philip Roth, who garnered votes for six of his novels published during the requisite time period.
The Times will showcase the selection in a special fiction edition of the "New York Times Book Review" on Sunday, May 21, which will include a list of the judges, all the rankings, and reviews of the top tier.
Literary Giants
The list of runners-up is a who's who of premier names in modern American literature:
- Underworld by Don Delillo
- Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
- Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels by John Updike
- American Pastoral by Philip Roth
In an interesting side note, voters bypassed virtually all the American authors who have come of age and gained prominence in recent decades. All of the finalists, including winner Morrison, are now in their seventies. And all are still very actively churning out books.
Beloved
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1987, Beloved is an astonishing portrayal of the brutal impact racial intolerance has had on black America. Set in Ohio after the Civil War, it tells the story of Sethe, an escaped slave who cannot get beyond the unspeakable agony of her past. The famous first lines of the book are a gripping and stark description of the house Sethe lives in with her daughter, Denver, and the mother of her dead husband:
124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children."
Morrison's language is so vivid and rich that nearly every page is a stunning piece of art. The story is complex and profound, telling - perhaps better than any book ever has- the ugly and wrenching story of slavery in America. It is as much a "must read" as any book of the twentieth century and has staked its claim as such in most college, and many high school, curriculum. Like most great literature, it can be read again and again with an increased gut-level understanding each time.
The history of the black experience in America is still being told - in bits and pieces and occasional flashes of genius such as this. There is much more to be understood and much more to be chronicled, but Toni Morrison's ongoing eloquence is a gift that makes that task seem do-able.
Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 for her entire body of work. Now 75, she works as Professor of Humanities at Princeton University and continues to write. Her last novel was Love, published in 2003.
