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Content snapshot
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Violence
A lot
Racial violence; a character is murdered; sexual violence in the backstory; historical violence against Black Americans
Language
Some
Moderate language; period and regional vernacular; some profanity
Sexual Content
Some
Moderate; adult relationships including one that is troubling in power dynamics; not graphically explicit
Substance Use
Some
Moderate; social drinking; period culture
Emotional Intensity
Very heavy
Very strong; the weight of a name and what it erases; a man's journey toward his own history; what flight means in Black American mythology; the relationship between the living and the dead in Morrison's work
What this book is about
Toni Morrison's third novel follows Macon 'Milkman' Dead III through childhood in a prosperous Michigan Black family, into young adulthood, and eventually on a journey south to Virginia that becomes a search for his family's true history. Morrison weaves myth, flight, violence, and the buried memory of slavery into a novel that is both intimate family story and American epic. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977 and is widely considered one of the great American novels.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Racial violence throughout
Sexual violence in backstory
Murder of a major character
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