2 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
New York Times, “What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25
Years?” 21 May 2006 <www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/books/fiction-25-
years.html> [accessed 24 November 2009].
Lists the results of the New York Times survey on best of contemporary Ameri-
can fiction.
Philip Page, “Anything Dead Coming Back to Life Hurts: Circularity in
Beloved,” in his Dangerous Freedom: Fusion and Fragmentation in Toni
Morrison’s Novels ( Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995).
Discusses figurative and literal fragmentation in Beloved, demonstrating its
role in character depictions and plot progression and at the level of prose.
Caroline Rody, “Toni Morrison’s Beloved: History, ‘Rememory,’ and a ‘Clamor
for a Kiss,’” American Literary History, 7 (Spring 1995): 92–119.
Argues that Beloved is not a “historiographic metafiction” but rather an attempt
to communicate authentic truth.
Ashraf H. A. Rushdy, “‘Rememory’: Primal Scenes and Constructions in Toni
Morrison’s Novels,” Contemporary Literature, 31 (Fall 1990): 300–323.
Discusses how adult recollection constructs childhood memories as it relates
to Morrison’s fiction.
A. O. Scott, “In Search of the Best,” New York Times, 21 May 2006 <www.
nytimes.com/2006/05/21/books/review/scott-essay.html> [accessed 24
November 2009].
Essay describing and analyzing the outcome of the New York Times request
to writers, editors, critics, and others to name the best book of the previous
twenty-five years. Scott discusses reasons why Beloved received multiple votes
along with works by Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, and John
Updike.
Barbara H. Solomon, ed., Critical Essays on Toni Morrison’s Beloved (New York:
G. K. Hall, 1998).
Essential collection of criticism on Beloved plus all the major reviews of the
novel. Seventeen essays cover such topics as the oral tradition, the supernatural
and ghosts, narrative strategies in the novel, connections to slave narratives,
symbolism, and memory. Also includes a brief piece in which Morrison herself
discusses the significance of the opening paragraphs of Beloved.
Steven Weisenburger, Modern Medea: A Family Story of Slavery and Child-
Murder from the Old South (New York: Hill & Wang, 1999).
History of the runaway slave Margaret Garner, her infanticide, and her trial.
—Kathryn West