Perspectives on Hope, Salvation, and Transforma-
tion, edited by Emilie M. Townes, 140–166. New
York: Orbis Books, 1997.
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Pocket
Books, 1982.
———. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. New York:
Harcourt Brace & Company, 1983.
LaJuan Simpson
Women of Brewster Place, The
Gloria Naylor (1982)
Initially a short story, GLORIA NAYLOR’s novel cen-
ters on the lives of seven black women of diverse
backgrounds and ages who struggle to survive the
deplorable social conditions of their lives. They live
on a dead-end street, trapped in an endless cycle
of racism, poverty, and sexism. Nevertheless, Nay-
lor’s special community of women attempts to rise
above their circumstances “like an ebony phoenix,
each in her own time” (5). In the end, they find
solace in their relationship with one another as
mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, and lovers.
The Women of Brewster Place, a tapestry of Af-
rican-American folk and historical traditions, tells
separate but interlocking stories about each of the
female protagonists: Etta Mae Johnson, Mattie’s
childhood friend and a good-time woman; Luc-
ielia Louise Turner, Miss Eva’s granddaughter who
loses her young daughter, Serena; Kiswana (for-
merly Melanie) Browne, a naive, middle-class ide-
alist; Cora Lee, the young unwed welfare mother
with seven children; and Theresa and Lorraine,
the lesbian couple known as “the two.” Mattie Mi-
chael, the central character who connects the sto-
ries, is a middle-aged matriarch who unselfishly
and unconditionally provides the other women
with love, guidance, support, strength, and protec-
tion. According to Naylor, her “slice of life tales”
are structured this way, “Because one character
couldn’t be the Black woman in America. So I had
seven different women, all in different circum-
stances, encompassing the complexity of our lives,
the richness of our diversity, from skin color on
down to religious, political and sexual preference”
(Ebony, 123). Together, Naylor’s gallery of women
stands as “hard-edged, soft-centered, brutally de-
manding, and easily pleased women” (5) united to
fight a hostile world.
The Women of Brewster Place is an impressive
first novel, addressing such themes as mother-
hood, love, sex, birth, death, and grief, among oth-
ers. However, although it was well received, and
although Naylor had, in her own words, “bent over
backwards not to have a negative message come
through about the men” (Naylor, 579), the novel,
along with ALICE WALKER’s The COLOR PURPLE
(1982), which was published the same year, was
criticized nonetheless for its portrayal of black
males as “Negro Beast stereotypes” (Johnson,
111). Despite such negative assessments, however,
Naylor has been ranked with such literary giants
as ZORA NEALE HURSTON, TONI MORRISON, and
ALICE WALKER.
In 1983, The Women of Brewster Place won the
American Book Award for First Fiction. During
the 1985–86 television season, it was produced
for PBS’s American Playhouse; Naylor wrote the
script. In 1989, Oprah Winfrey’s firm, Harpo, Inc.,
produced it as an ABC television miniseries, star-
ring Mary Alice, Olivia Cole, Robin Givens, Moses
Gunn, Lonette McKee, Paula Kelly, Jackèe, Bar-
bara Montgomery, Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, Cicely
Tyson, Douglas Turner Ward, Lynn Whitfield, Paul
Winfield, and Oprah Winfrey as Mattie Michael.
In 1990, a spin-off of the miniseries titled Brewster
Place, also produced by Harpo, Inc., aired for a few
weeks on ABC but was canceled because of low
ratings. Today, Naylor’s “love letter to the Black
women of America” (McDowell, 636) continues to
be a mainstay in contemporary African-American
literature and especially women’s studies courses.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gottlieb, Annie. “Women Together.” Review of The
Women of Brewster Place. New York Times Book
Review, 22 August 1982, pp. 11, 25.
Johnson, Charles. Being and Race: Black Writing since- Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
McDowell, Margaret B. “Naylor, Gloria.” In Con-
temporary Novelists, edited by D. L. Kirkpatrick,
636–637. New York: St. Martin’s, 1986.
Women of Brewster Place, The 561