ability to the media made her a popular sports cham-
pion and role model for other lesbians.
Further Reading
Blue, Adrianne.Martina: The Lives and Times of Mar-
tina Navratilova. Secaucus, N.J.: Carol, 1995.
Navratilova, Martina.Being Myself. New York: Har-
perCollins, 1986.
Alan Prescott Peterson
See also Homosexuality and gay rights; McEnroe,
John; Sports; Tennis.
Naylor, Gloria
Identification African American novelist
Born January 25, 1950; New York, New York
An important African American woman novelist, Naylor
published three books during the 1980’s that made a signif-
icant impact upon American literar y culture.
During the 1980’s, Gloria Naylor published three
important and widely acclaimed novels:The Women
of Brewster Place: A Novel in Seven Stories(1982),Linden
Hills(1985), andMama Day(1988). All three books
focused on African American characters, telling dis-
tinctly American stories that touched on a wide
swath of experience to treat poverty, racism, sexism,
sexuality, spirituality, and community.The Women of
Brewster Placereceived accolades, winning the 1983
American Book Award for best first novel. In 1989,
the novel was adapted for the American Broadcast-
ing Company (ABC) as a miniseries produced by
Oprah Winfrey, who also acted in the production.
Naylor’s books are at once accessible to a wide
scope of readers and highly literary, making allu-
sions to the works of Dante and William Shakespeare
and to other classics by both white writers and writers
of color. Among critics, Naylor is regarded for her
deft depictions of African American women across
socioeconomic classes and life experiences. Her work
took on particular significance against the backdrop
of a public debate of the 1980’s, during which some
public figures viciously characterized African Ameri-
cans as abusing the nation’s welfare system and lead-
ing the country’s crime rates. Naylor exploded these
stereotypes—particularly that of the “black welfare
mother.”The Women of Brewster Place, set in an urban
housing project in the Northeast, narrates the histo-
ries of seven female residents and their relation-
ships. By chronicling their difficulties and suffering,
Naylor revealed American society’s racism, sexism,
and homophobia while telling horrific stories of vio-
lence and poverty. Poverty is extremely hard on chil-
dren in Naylor’s novel: A rat bites one child’s face, a
large family runs wild and eats from the neighbor-
hood garbage can, and another child is electro-
cuted. The novel moves beyond its portraits of the
seven women to tell the story of Brewster Place itself.
It begins and ends by recounting the first thirty years
of the community’s development from promising
neighborhood into dead-end street project.
A strong sense of place pervades all of Naylor’s
work, and it was a major theme in many African
American novels of the 1980’s, as well as films such as
Do the Right Thing(1989), set in Brooklyn, andCom-
ing to America(1988), set in Queens. In African
American television shows such as 227 (1985-1990),
set in Washington, D.C., andFrank’s Place(1987-
1988), set in Louisiana, setting also played a promi-
nent role in the narrative.700 Naylor, Gloria The Eighties in America
Gloria Naylor.