It's amusing to read the negative reviews for this book on the site; it seems almost easier, I guess, to dismiss it as unmanageable (and thereby, "bad") than to honestly try and tackle the novel for what it is--a thoroughly complex and beautifully written drama of the different kinds of love and the betrayals that twist them.

This is the fourth Morrison novel I've read, and while it isn't my favorite by a long shot--it's not haunting in the way Beloved is, perverse in the way The Bluest Eye is, or powerful in the way Sula is--it has some of the best character portraits I've read in a long time. I'll admit that it was a difficult read in that it's hard to keep the characters and the actual plotline organized because of Morrison's strategy of selectively revealing information, but I like a good challenge and felt rewarded by the end of it, which I think is the important part.

It's not so much the details that count here, anyhow, but the understanding of how betrayals are able to twist innocent love and harden the people involved. I hated Christine and Heed almost until the end, but nonetheless, was so incredibly fascinated by them. Morrison's strength in all of her novels (that I've read) is her ability to present such bleak situation and such perverse characters while never passing moral judgment--for example, Bill Cosey's sexual violation of and eventual wedding to eleven year-old Heed could easily have been written as something so disgusting as to be unreadable, but Morrison allows for all sides of the story to be played out. She always manages somehow to evoke sympathy in the reader for her "villains." Anyhow, I found it to be a great novel--if you're just getting started with Morrison, this is not the book to go to (try "The Bluest Eye"), but if you enjoyed her other works, you'll certainly enjoy her stunning prose and her ceaseless ability to surprise and provoke. Happy reading!