Love

by Toni Morrison Narrated by Toni Morrison

Overview

From the internationally acclaimed Nobel laureate comes a richly conceived novel that illuminates the full spectrum of desire.

May, Christine, Heed, Junior, Vida -- even L: all women obsessed by Bill Cosey. More than the wealthy owner of the famous Cosey Hotel and Resort, he shapes their yearnings for father, husband, lover, guardian, friend, yearnings that dominate the lives of these women long after his death. Yet while he is both the void in, and the centre of, their stories, he himself is driven by secret forces -- a troubled past and a spellbinding woman named Celestial.

This audacious vision of the nature of love -- its appetite, its sublime possession, its dread -- is rich in characters and striking scenes, and in its profound understanding of how alive the past can be.

A major addition to the canon of one of the world's literary masters.

This is coast country, humid and God fearing, where female recklessness runs too deep for short shorts or thongs or cameras. But then or now, decent underwear or none, wild women never could hide their innocence -- a kind of pitty-kitty hopefulness that their prince was on his way. Especially the tough ones with their box cutters and dirty language, or the glossy ones with two-seated cars and a pocketbook full of dope. Even the ones who wear scars like Presidential medals and stockings rolled at their ankles can't hide the sugar-child, the winsome baby girl curled up somewhere inside, between the ribs, say, or under the heart. -- from Love

Editorial Reviews

The New York Review of Books

...Love may be about passion between men and women, or family ties, or the tenderness the elderly feel for the young about to make their own mistakes, but in the end it seems to have the most to say about how women love, which is perhaps different from the way men do. The novel is modest in length, but constantly suggestive, a beautiful, haunting work about two wasted lives that also mourns for a certain time in black live. — Darryl Pinckney

The New York Times

Like all of Morrison's best fiction, this is a village novel. Race and racism, ancillary concerns in Love for the most part, throw the small groups she writes about back upon one another, steeping their passions. Even when the setting is contemporary, Morrison's books feel old-fashioned, set in a world where the perpetual distraction of the media hasn't diluted people's fascination with their neighbors, where the misadventures of J.Lo and P. Diddy don't siphon off attention from the scandal next door. Morrison is, as always, interested in the face-off between the respectable and the not, between the clean, orderly, responsible citizens of Silk, the town where the Cosey women live, and the unchaste, shoeless ne'er-do-wells of neighborhoods like the Settlement and Up Beach, where one of the Cosey women started out. — Laura Miller

Publishers Weekly

More a tapestry than a novel, Morrison's newest weaves the past into the present using perspectives as threads and voices as color. The author's soft voice forces listeners to pay close attention; even so, the novel's complex construction, coupled with her hushed tones, will have listeners reaching for "rewind" to capture the subtle details so important in Morrison's compositions. This audiobook is best suited for those prepared to concentrate closely and wait patiently as layer builds upon layer. The story opens in the 1930s on the Florida coast when L, who narrates the story from beyond the grave, sees Cosey holding his wife, Julia, in the ocean; L feels such waves of tenderness radiating off him that she signs on to his life forever and becomes both maid and chef at his hotel. The novel winds through the lives of Cosey's other women, including his granddaughter Christine and her best friend, Heed the Night Johnson. Cosey twirls them all around his little finger, abruptly and unapologetically marrying the 12-year-old Heed. Thread by thread, the novel builds as Cosey's women glitter around him, even after his death. Morrison leaves readers with the powerful realization: neither good nor evil, Cosey was simply a man. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Forecasts, Sept. 1, 2003). (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

When gorgeous and amoral Junior arrives in the Southern coastal town of Silk, chance brings her to a deadly crossroads. She talks herself into a job at the center of a love/hate feud between two elderly women, the remaining members of a clan who once defined Silk's African American elite. The tension involves the late Bill "Papa" Cosey and the riches he achieved during his heyday in the 1940s and 1950s as proprietor of a fabulous resort. Along the way, he obtained the intense love of many women, including granddaughter Christine, lower-class child bride Heed, and spectacular "sporting woman" Celestial. Eight compact chapters named for aspects of Cosey's character ("Benefactor," "Lover," "Guardian," and so on) present the shifting perspectives of those entranced by this charismatic, secretive man long after his death. Nobel Laureate Morrison's latest is a vividly narrated exploration of the pleasures, burdens, and distortions of obsessive devotion. Given the book's brevity, the dialog must carry the story convincingly-and, of course, Morrison is a master at this. Certainly, this book won't disappoint readers already familiar with Morrison and will serve as a good introduction for those new to her. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/03.]-Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A black patriarch's obsessive domination of the many women in his life is relentlessly scrutinized in the 1993 Nobel winner's intricately patterned eighth novel. An opening monologue spoken by an unidentified elderly woman reminisces about the once-vibrant, now-defunct Florida Hotel and Resort (a "playground" for affluent black people) owned by the late Bill Cosey: a rags-to-riches millionaire revered for his benevolence and his ability to attract and possess beautiful women. We're soon introduced to Junior Viviane, a runaway and reform-school veteran who answers an ad for a "Companion, Secretary" placed by Cosey's (much younger) widow Heed (born, wretchedly poor, as Heed the Night Johnson). Then, in a gorgeous deployment of enigmatic flashbacks, Morrison focuses in turn on elderly May Cosey, the widow of Cosey's son Billy Boy; May's daughter Christine, the old man's only surviving blood relative, who had fled the Resort and forfeited her birthright; and the silent, judging presence who has observed them all: Cosey's legendary chef, known only as L. As Junior expertly seduces Romen, the adolescent grandson of Sandler and Vida Gibbons (both of whom had been employed by Cosey), Christine's rage, May's paranoid fear of racial unrest as a threat to her security ("for years, she hoarded and buried, and preserved and stole"), and the frail heed's stranglehold on the Cosey property and history, all meld, as the novel's climactic events deepen the enigma of Cosey (who's present only in retrospect): a fructifying paternal figure, and perhaps also an unconscionable predator (or, as L. wryly concludes, "an ordinary man ripped, like the rest of us, by wrath and love"). Incorporating elements fromearlier Morrison novels (notably Jazz, Paradise, and Sula), Love is an elegantly shaped epic of infatuation, enslavement, and liberation: a rich symbolic mystery that grows steadily more eloquent and disturbing as its meanings clarify and grip the reader. One of Morrison's finest, and a heartening return to Nobel-worthy form. First printing of 500,000; author tour

From the Publisher

Like love at first sight, it has the ability to startle.” —The Boston Globe

“A deeply affecting work by a Great American Novelist who is still . . . at the top of her form. . . . Morrison’s tender, taut prose wastes no word, no syllable, no letter. . . . A novel of devastating revelations, impeccably arranged.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“A marvelous work, which enlarges our conception not only of love but of racial politics, the ubiquitous past and . . . paradise.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

“A dense, dark star of a novel . . . with Morrison writing at the top of her game.” —Newsweek

“Toni Morrison reframes the mythology of love in a dark light and comes away with a mesmerizing gem.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Like every other stealthy Morrison novel, Love has closets and cellars, bolt-holes and trap-doors and card tricks. . . . Yet again, she gives us dreams.” —John Leonard, Vanity Fair

“The carefully crafted work of a storyteller entirely unburdened by her Nobel Prize. . . . William Faulkner and Eudora Welty would feel right welcome. . . . The moral palette of this novel displays a full range of colors.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“A profound commentary on the power of love.” —The Baltimore Sun

“Love is slim and tight as a folded fan, yet from it the author flashes a panorama three generations wide. . . . When the reader closes the book . . . there is the satisfaction of a song that has ended just right. The standing soloist we applaud . . . is the fierce literary intelligence of Morrison striking the chords of human experience and playing it wise.” —The Miami Herald

“Magisterial and gripping . . . a knockout. . . . A reminder of what a marvel a novel can be.” —Rocky Mountain News

“To enter a novel by Morrison is to enter a world fully imagined, and Love is no exception. . . . Love takes you on the first page and holds you in the welcome spell of a writer who knows what she’s doing, and who can slip into the most ordinary sentence a twist of surprise.” —San Jose Mercury News

“Love is Morrison back at the peak of her talent. . . . The novel lives up to its name and puts to rest any doubts that its author is anything except great.” —New York Daily News

“[A] beautifully wrought meditation on society, family and human nature . . . brimming with provocative, beautiful writing.”  —The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Love . . . [is] like that song you remember from long ago, the one you danced to, sweet and slow, and which has haunted you ever since. . . . Morrison’s tale lies in its telling, not just the lilting lyricism of her prose but also the insight into her characters’ hidden hearts.” —The Orlando Sentinel

“For pure pleasure, it deserves to be read more than once.” —The Plain Dealer

“There is beauty and wisdom in Love. . . . Her lyrical talent and her profound intelligence . . . make themselves felt.” —The New York Observer

JUN/JUL 04 - AudioFile

Bill Cosey’s male magnetism attracts the women who inhabit Morrison’s pages. Some commanding, some flighty, all are drawn to Cosey’s passion. Once, Cosey’s Hotel and Resort on the beach was the place for “colored folk on the East Coast.” Now, the run-down structure is home to his contentious widow and granddaughter. Through a series of retrospectives, the mystery of the questionable circumstances surrounding Cosey’s death and his role in each woman’s life gradually unfolds. Morrison confronts issues of race in America, particularly the deep disappointment of many African-Americans in the face of ineffectual civil rights legislation. Aching with melancholy for another, better, time, a time left in a troubled past, Morrison’s novel combines elegance of language with a lush, luxurious reading to make “must listening.” S.J.H. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172108617
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	10/28/2003
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

The day she walked the streets of Silk, a chafing wind kept the temperature low and the sun was helpless to move outdoor thermometers more than a few degrees above freezing. Tiles of ice had formed at the shoreline and, inland, the thrown-together houses on Monarch Street whined like puppies. Ice slick gleamed, then disappeared in the early evening shadow, causing the sidewalks she marched along to undermine even an agile tread, let alone one with a faint limp. She should have bent her head and closed her eyes to slits in that weather, but being a stranger, she stared wide-eyed at each house, searching for the address that matched the one in the advertisement: One Monarch Street. Finally she turned into a driveway where Sandler Gibbons stood in his garage door ripping the seam from a sack of Ice-Off. He remembers the crack of her heels on concrete as she approached; the angle of her hip as she stood there, the melon sun behind her, the garage light in her face. He remembers the pleasure of her voice when she asked for directions to the house of women he has known all his life.

"You sure?" he asked when she told him the address.

She took a square of paper from a jacket pocket, held it with ungloved fingers while she checked, then nodded.

Sandler Gibbons scanned her legs and reckoned her knees and thighs were stinging from the cold her tiny skirt exposed them to. Then he marveled at the height of her bootheels, the cut of her short leather jacket. At first he'd thought she wore a hat, something big and fluffy to keep her ears and neck warm. Then he realized that it was hair-blown forward by the wind, distracting him from her face. She looked to him like a sweet child, fine-boned, gently raised but lost.

"Cosey women," he said. "That's their place you looking for. It ain't been number one for a long time now, but you can't tell them that. Can't tell them nothing. It 1410 or 1401, probably."

Now it was her turn to question his certainty.

"I'm telling you," he said, suddenly irritable-the wind, he thought, tearing his eyes. "Go on up thataway. You can't miss it 'less you try to. Big as a church."

She thanked him but did not turn around when he hollered at her back, "Or a jailhouse."

Sandler Gibbons didn't know what made him say that. He believed his wife was on his mind. She would be off the bus by now, stepping carefully on slippery pavement until she got to their driveway. There she would be safe from falling because, with the forethought and common sense he was known for, he was prepared for freezing weather in a neighborhood that had no history of it. But the "jailhouse" comment meant he was really thinking of Romen, his grandson, who should have been home from school an hour and a half ago. Fourteen, way too tall, and getting muscled, there was a skulk about him, something furtive that made Sandler Gibbons stroke his thumb every time the boy came into view. He and Vida Gibbons had been pleased to have him, raise him, when their daughter and son-in-law enlisted. Mother in the army; father in the merchant marines. The best choice out of none when only pickup work (housecleaning in Harbor for the women, hauling road trash for the men) was left after the cannery closed. "Parents idle, children sidle," his own mother used to say. Getting regular yard work helped, but not enough to keep Romen on the dime and out of the sight line of ambitious, under-occupied police. His own boyhood had been shaped by fear of vigilantes, but dark blue uniforms had taken over posse work now. What thirty years ago was a one-sheriff, one-secretary department was now four patrol cars and eight officers with walkie-talkies to keep the peace.

He was wiping salt dust from his hands when the two people under his care arrived at the same time, one hollering, "Hoo! Am I glad you did this! Thought I'd break my neck." The other saying, "What you mean, Gran? I had your arm all the way from the bus."

"Course you did, baby." Vida Gibbons smiled, hoping to derail any criticism her husband might be gathering against her grandson.

At dinner, the scalloped potatoes having warmed his mood, Sandler picked up the gossip he'd begun while the three of them were setting the table.

"What did you say she wanted?" Vida asked, frowning. The ham slices had toughened with reheating.

"Looking for those Cosey women, I reckon. That was the address she had. The old address, I mean. When wasn't nobody out here but them."

"That was written on her paper?" She poured a little raisin sauce over her meat.

"I didn't look at it, woman. I just saw her check it. Little scrap of something looked like it came from a newspaper."

"You were concentrating on her legs, I guess. Lot of information there."

Romen covered his mouth and closed his eyes.

"Vida, don't belittle me in front of the boy."

"Well, the first thing you told me was about her skirt. I'm just following your list of priorities."

"I said it was short, that's all."

"How short?" Vida winked at Romen.

"They wear them up to here, Gran." Romen's hand disappeared under the table.

"Up to where?" Vida leaned sideways.

"Will you two quit? I'm trying to tell you something."

"You think she's a niece, maybe?" asked Vida.

"Could be. Didn't look like one, though. Except for size, looked more like Christine's people." Sandler motioned for the jar of jalapeños,

"Christine don't have any people left."

"Maybe she had a daughter you don't know about." Romen just wanted to be in the conversation, but as usual, they looked at him as if his fly was open.

"Watch your mouth," said his grandfather.

"I'm just talking, Gramp. How would I know?"

"You wouldn't, so don't butt in."

"Stch."

"You sucking your teeth at me?"

"Sandler, lighten up. Can't you leave him alone for a minute?" Vida asked.

Sandler opened his mouth to defend his position, but decided to bite the tip off the pepper instead.

"Anyway, the less I hear about those Cosey girls, the better I like it," said Vida.

"Girls?" Romen made a face.

"Well, that's how I think of them. Hincty, snotty girls with as much cause to look down on people as a pot looks down on a skillet."

"They're cool with me," said Romen. "The skinny one, anyway."

Vida glared at him. "Don't you believe it. She pays you; that's all you need from either one."

Romen swallowed. Now she was on his back. "Why you all make me work there if they that bad?"

"Make you?" Sandler scratched a thumb.

"Well, you know, send me over there."

"Drown this boy, Vida. He don't know a favor from a fart."

"We sent you because you need some kind of job, Romen. You've been here four months and it's time you took on some of the weight."

Romen tried to get the conversation back to his employers' weaknesses and away from his own. "Miss Christine always gives me something good to eat."

"I don't want you eating off her stove."

"Vida."

"I don't."

"That's just rumor."

"A rumor with mighty big feet. And I don't trust that other one either. I know what she's capable of."

"Vida."

"You forgot?" Vida's eyebrows lifted in surprise.

"Nobody knows for sure."

"Knows what?" asked Romen.

"Some old mess," said his grandfather.

Vida stood and moved to the refrigerator. "Somebody killed him as sure as I'm sitting here. Wasn't a thing wrong with that man." Dessert was canned pineapple in sherbet glasses. Vida set one at each place. Sandler, unimpressed, leaned back. Vida caught his look but decided to let it lie. She worked; he was on a security guard's hilarious pension. And although he kept the house just fine, she was expected to come home and cook a perfect meal every day.

"What man?" Romen asked.

"Bill Cosey," replied Sandler. "Used to own a hotel and a lot of other property, including the ground under this house."

Vida shook her head. "I saw him the day he died. Hale at breakfast; dead at lunch."

"He had a lot to answer for, Vida."

"Somebody answered for him: 'No lunch.' "

"You forgive that old reprobate anything."

"He paid us good money, Sandler, and taught us, too. Things I never would have known about if I'd kept on living over a swamp in a stilt house. You know what my mother's hands looked like. Because of Bill Cosey, none of us had to keep doing that kind of work."

"It wasn't that bad. I miss it sometimes."

"Miss what? Slop jars? Snakes?"

"The trees."

"Oh, shoot." Vida tossed her spoon into the sherbet glass hard enough to get the clink she wanted.

"Remember the summer storms?" Sandler ignored her. "The air just before-"

"Get up, Romen." Vida tapped the boy's shoulder. "Help me with the dishes."

"I ain't finished, Gran."

"Yes you are. Up."

Romen, forcing air through his lips, pushed back his chair and unfolded himself. He tried to exchange looks with his grandfather, but the old man's eyes were inward.

"Never seen moonlight like that anywhere else." Sandler's voice was low. "Make you want to-" He collected himself. "I'm not saying I would move back."

"I sure hope not." Vida scraped the plates loudly. "You'd need gills."

"Mrs. Cosey said it was a paradise." Romen reached for a cube of pineapple with his fingers.

Vida slapped his hand. "It was a plantation. And Bill Cosey took us off of it."

"The ones he wanted." Sandler spoke to his shoulder.

"I heard that. What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, Vida. Like you said, the man was a saint."

"There's no arguing with you."

Romen dribbled liquid soap into hot water. His hands felt good sloshing in it, though it stung the bruises on his knuckles. His side hurt more while he stood at the sink, but he felt better listening to his grandparents fussing about the olden days. Less afraid.

Excerpted from Love by Toni Morrison Copyright ©2003 by Toni Morrison. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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