PASSAGES: On Morrison takes reading on the road.
Join Namwali Serpell, novelist, critic, and Harvard professor, as she joins fellow writers and skilled readers in conversation to pore over excerpts of Toni Morrison’s prose.
Recorded throughout the book tour for ON MORRISON—Serpell’s electrifying, critical examination of Morrison’s writing—each episode welcomes listeners into rooms full of readers and discussions of how Morrison made her words sing.
This show is the record of a traveling salon, a celebration of Morrison’s extraordinary work, and a love letter to reading closely in community.
Available wherever you get your podcasts.
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1. Opening Up THE BLUEST EYE with Tracy K. Smith
Namwali Serpell kicks off the tour for her new book ON MORRISON at the First Parish Church in Cambridge, MA, in conversation with poet Tracy K. Smith. Together, they read the opening of THE BLUEST EYE, Toni Morrison's debut novel, and discuss all that the passage emits and erases. They also explore how the cultural treatment of Morrison as a literary icon or monument has obscured a true appreciation of her literary form, an appreciation that comes from turning to the page.
2. Flying into SONG OF SOLOMON with Hanif Abdurraqib
For the launch of Ohio's year-long, state-wide celebration of Toni Morrison, Namwali Serpell flies to Columbus to talk with poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib. With the help of the audience, they read the ending of Morrison's SONG OF SOLOMON and then open up the scene's quiet violence and ambiguous action. The passage leads them to discuss the challenges of adapting Morrison's novels for film, the power of evoking the inexplicable, and the influence of African folk tales on Morrison's work.
3. Playing in SULA with Dionne Custer Edwards
Continuing our tour of Ohio, Namwali joins writer and educator Dionne Custer Edwards to discuss ON MORRISON at the Bexley Public Library. They read and open up a passage of Morrison's SULA, a brimming scene of friendship and play between the two central characters, Sula and Nel. Dionne and Namwali explore the innocence of the girls' mirrored play with twigs and grass, but also the undertones of maturation, as Nel and Sula hover on the threshold between the girls they have been and the women they are actively becoming.
4. Seeking PARADISE with Kortney Morrow
Toni Morrison didn't want a monument or statue erected in her honor; she wanted a dedicated reading room in her hometown public library, a space that could allow for change and continuous engagement with her work. In this episode, Namwali Serpell visits the Toni Morrison Reading Room in the Lorain Public Library, before heading to a tour event at the CityClub Cleveland to open up a passage from Morrison's novel PARADISE alongside poet and writer Kortney Morrow.
5. Calling on BELOVED with Vinson Cunningham
BELOVED is a holy space made of words. Across the street from Washington Square Park, in New York City's historic Judson Memorial Church, Namwali Serpell, writer Vinson Cunningham, and our live audience invoke the hauntings of Morrison's most celebrated novel. Reading from BELOVED's final, stunning page, Namwali and Vinson trace how Morrison imbues meaning on the level of syntax and crafts her words into a story that cannot be forgotten.
6. Dreaming TAR BABY with Angela Flournoy
In the threshold between awake and sleeping, a woman in a yellow dress strolls the aisles of a grocery store.
Continuing on tour for ON MORRISON, Namwali Serpell travels to Philadelphia to talk with writer Angela Flournoy about a scene from TAR BABY. Speaking at the Free Library, they trace the novel's invocation of myths and masks, Morrison's paradoxical presentation of stereotypes, and the surreal, slippery images that make the scene in the grocery store stick.
7. Feeling In On JAZZ with Cathy Park Hong
Every city has a pulse, a rhythm, a certain way it's touched by light.
Continuing on tour for ON MORRISON, Namwali lands in sunny Oakland, California, where she reads Morrison's striking, swinging portrait of Harlem's jazz age with poet and writer Cathy Park Hong. At an event with the Bay Area Book Festival, Namwali and Cathy discuss slant rhymes, slanted grammars, and the slanting light Morrison wields in the passage to depict the City's beauty, violence, music, and love.
8. Basking in Morrison's Shade with Saeed Jones
In the words of drag performer Dorian Corey, shade requires you to "go to the fine point." To throw shade—to insult your subject, either a text or a person, with maximum flare and make it fun for an audience—you have to pick out extremely precise details, naming the specificities of what you dislike.
Toni Morrison was an exceptionally close reader, and this enabled her to be a master of shade.
At a celebratory event at the end of her tour for ON MORRISON, Namwali Serpell discusses Morrison's shade as critical praxis with poet, memoirist, and host of "Vibe Check" Saeed Jones. They read and open up Morrison's excoriating review of Regina Nadelson's Who Is Angela Davis?, an unauthorized biography of the young revolutionary. The review was originally published in 1972 in The New York Times.
Read ON MORRISON
By Namwali Serpell
Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate and one of our most beloved writers, has inspired generations of readers. But her artistic genius is often overshadowed by her monumental public persona, perhaps because, as Namwali Serpell puts it, “she is our only truly canonical black female writer—and her work is highly complex.” In On Morrison, Serpell brings her unique experience as both an award-winning writer and a professor who teaches a course on Morrison to illuminate her masterful experiments with literary form.
This is Morrison as you’ve never encountered her before, a journey through her oeuvre—her fiction and criticism, as well as her lesser-known dramatic works and poetry—with contextual guidance and original close readings. At once accessible and uncompromisingly rigorous, On Morrison is a primer not only on how to read one of the most significant American authors of all time but also on how to read great works of literature in general. This dialogue on the page between two black women artist-readers is stylish, edifying, and thrilling in its scope and intelligence.
“Thrilling … ingenious.”—Wesley Morris, The New York Times
“In this lavish yet clear-eyed study, Serpell shows how Morrison breathed new life into the novel. This is literary criticism at its finest.”—Time
“Invigorating … an informed, accessible literary analysis.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Resplendent … fresh and smart … [a] work of swaggering genius.”—Bookforum
“As gripping as it is intellectually brilliant … a classic.”—Cathy Park Hong
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, AND ESQUIRE
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
An illuminating, electrifying exploration of the work of Toni Morrison by an award-winning novelist and Harvard professor—“a revelatory encounter with the Nobel laureate’s oeuvre” (The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice)
“A landmark appraisal of the great novelist’s work.”—Laila Lalami, The Guardian
“Revelatory … will captivate everyone from newcomers to [Morrison’s] most devoted fans.”—Vulture
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“PASSAGES: On Morrison” is a production of the Random House Publishing Group. The show was created and produced by Sara McCrea, with technical direction and sound design by John DeLore. Publicity and tour coordination by Carrie Neill and Peter Dyer. Cover art includes “Toni Morrison as Song of Solomon” (1981) by John Sokol.
