Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Amazon.com Review
Morrison's earthy, poetic voice compliments perfectly the fantastical and mythical elements of Song Of Soloman. A world where fathers fly in clouds of rose petals, and women can cast spells. The text is perfectly suited for an audio rendition - as poetry, songs and the spoken word feature so heavily in the book.
Morrison narrates for three hours and lays out before us the complex lives and backgrounds of four generations of black family life in the south. Central is the character Milkman--an unfortunate nickname owed to his lengthy nursing period and delayed coming of age. Although a late starter, Milkman develops into a fundamentally strong person, who eventually learns to cherish his family and the importance of his roots.
The narrator breathes life into an intriguing and diverse set of characters--from violent criminals to devout parents. Through them Morrison explores complex social and racial issues using luscious lyrical language This text refers to the audiobook edition of this title.

Review
"A rich, full novel. . . . It lifts us up [and] impresses itself upon us like a love affair." —_The New York Times Book Review
_"Exuberant. . . . An artistic vision that encompasses both a private and national heritage."
"A rhapsodic work. . . . Intricate and inventive." —_The New Yorker
"Stunningly beautiful. . . . Full of magnificent people. . . . They are still haunting my house. I suspect they will be with me forever." —Anne Tyler, The Washington Post
_"If Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man went underground, Toni Morrison's Milkman flies." —John Leonard, _The New York Times Book Review
"It places Toni Morrison in the front rank of contemporary American writers. She has written a novel that will endure." —The Washington Post
"Lovely. . . . A delight, full of lyrical variety and allusiveness. . . . [An] exceptionally diverse novel." —The Atlantic Monthly
"Morrison is a terrific storyteller. . . . Her writing evokes the joyful richness of life." —Newsday
"Morrison dazzles. . . . She creates a black community strangely unto itself yet never out of touch with the white world. . . . With an ear as sharp as glass she has listened to the music of black talk and uses it as a palette knife to create black lives and to provide some of the best fictional dialogue around today." —The Nation
"A marvelous novel, the most moving I have read in ten years of reviewing." —Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Toni Morrison has created a fanciful world here. . . . She has an impeccable sense of emotional detail. She's the most sensible lyrical writer around today." —The Philadelphia Inquirer
"A fine novel exuberantly constructed. . . . So rich in its use of common speech, so sophisticated in its use of literary traditions and language from the Bible to Faulkner . . . it is also extremely funny." —The Hudson Review
"Toni Morrison is an extraordinarily good writer. Two pages into anything she writes one feels the power of her language and the emotional authority behind that language. . . . One closes the book warmed through by the richness of its sympathy, and by its breathtaking feel for the nature of sexual sorrow." —The Village Voice
"Morrison moves easily in and out of the lives and thoughts of her characters, luxuriating in the diversity of circumstances and personality, and revelling in the sound of their voices and of her own, which echoes and elaborates theirs." —The New Yorker
_