Paradise book review

 Paradise by Toni Morrison

1997

Literary fiction, historical fiction

It’s extremely rare that I finish a book and am left feeling like I didn’t fully understand it.  I’ve read many books so far this year, and Paradise is by far the most difficult, but perhaps the most thought-provoking.

The nonlinear Paradise tells the history of an all-black small town in rural Oklahoma. Without a main character, the story spans decades, detailing the tensions between the founding families of the town and a group of women who have formed a haven of their own. The timelessness of Paradise is one of the best things about the story. I’ve never read any of Toni Morrison’s novels before, but her ability to weave in so many different issues that remain thought-provoking 20+ years later is astonishing. Each section further developed how race, gender, and history affect the town and the people in it

What makes this a difficult read is not the beautiful prose, but the nonlinear study of the town. Over the course of the novel, you meet characters from the nineteenth to late twentieth century. Each chapter tells the story of a different character, and their view on the town, and their life. While I don’t think this should stop anyone from reading Paradise, I believe that anyone interested should know the novel is quite complex (which I especially noticed when I tried reading it as a beach read.)

Rating 4/5: I fully believe this book is worth the read, but it does come with a warning. Never has a novel ever made me think about the creation of towns and their values quite like Paradise.