Toni Morrison by Barbara Kramer

Author:Barbara Kramer [Kramer, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4645-1146-2
Publisher: Enslow Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2013-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

… Tar Baby keeps you turning pages … a melodrama full of sex, violence, myth, wit, wry wisdom and the extraordinary sense of place that distinguishes all Morrison’s writing, it wraps its urgent messages in a highly potent love story.9

On the other hand, other critics said that the very qualities that made Morrison’s other novels so extraordinary—lyrical prose and good dialogue—were overdone in Tar Baby. “A novelist’s vice usually resembles his virtue, for what he does best he also tends to do to excess …” John Irving explained in a review for The New York Times Book Review.10

Others thought the book was too political. Morrison said she did not think Tar Baby was any more political than her other books. She thought the difference was that she had written about white characters in Tar Baby. “The politics of the other books were greater, but they were addressed only to Black people—it was obvious that it was a domestic affair,” she said.11

In spite of mixed reviews, Tar Baby sold well. It made The New York Times best-seller list one month after it was published and stayed there for sixteen weeks. Morrison helped promote her book with a publishing tour through fourteen cities. She gave many television interviews, including an appearance on NBC’s Today show.

In many of those interviews, the fact that Morrison was an African-American writer became an issue. It is a topic that Morrison has sometimes been unwilling to discuss because she says the question suggests that African-American writers are inferior to other writers. “I mind talking about it when it appears as though I am a star within a diminished world,” she explained. “On the other hand, I am very much a black writer; that is very much a part of what I do.”12

Although Morrison does not always like to talk about being an African-American writer, she is able to laugh about it. While she was promoting Tar Baby, Morrison was interviewed on The Dick Cavett Show on PBS. Near the end of the taping of the show, Cavett asked if it would have been nice to do the entire hour show without once mentioning the word “black.” Morrison smiled and answered, “I guess so, but you started it.”13

Morrison’s attitude toward interviews and reporters varies. Some of the words used to describe her are defensive, touchy, and prickly. Other reporters have found her to be warm, funny, and entertaining as she tells stories about her childhood and the people she knows. In an article for the Chicago Tribune, Dana Micucci wrote: “Her voice is soft and lulling, punctuated frequently by an exuberant laugh that hints of a warm and ready generosity.”14 When Betty Fussell interviewed Morrison for Lear’s magazine, she wrote: “Toni Morrison does not so much give an interview as perform one, in a silken voice that can purr like a saxophone or erupt like brass.”15

She does not disclose a lot of personal information in her interviews. “I probably spend about 60 percent of my time hiding,” she once said.

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