Historical Fiction · DarkIn 1873 Cincinnati, a formerly enslaved woman's house is haunted, and then a young woman arrives
Beloved
A formerly enslaved mother, a haunted house and a young woman who appears at the door
Sethe and her daughter Denver live at 124 Bluestone Road in Cincinnati, a house haunted by the ghost of Sethe's dead daughter. Paul D, a man Sethe knew from the Sweet Home plantation, arrives, and soon afterward a mysterious young woman named Beloved appears at the house. Their arrival brings the family's buried past to the surface.
More about this book
Who
Sethe, a formerly enslaved mother; her daughter Denver; Paul D from the Sweet Home plantation; Baby Suggs, Sethe's mother-in-law; and a young woman named Beloved.
World
Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1873, after the American Civil War, in a haunted house at 124 Bluestone Road.
What makes it different
It is a ghost story built on a real history. It was loosely based on Margaret Garner, an enslaved woman who tried to flee to Cincinnati in 1856. It won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was made into a 1998 film with Oprah Winfrey.
Feel
Intense and demanding, with a supernatural presence and a nonlinear structure.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Behind the book
Morrison found the story of Margaret Garner in an 1856 newspaper article while working as an editor on The Black Book in 1974. Garner was an enslaved woman who tried to flee to Cincinnati and killed her daughter to spare her from slavery.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- BelovedWikipedia