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Beloved
1998
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Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is persistently haunted by the ghost of her dead baby girl. - (Baker & Taylor)

Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is haunted persistently by the ghost of the dead baby girl whom she sacrificed. Read by Toni Morrison. Book available. - (Baker & Taylor)

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding audio transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement. - (Random House, Inc.)

Author Biography

Toni Morrison was born in Lorain, Ohio. She now divides her time between Rockland County, New York, and Princeton, New Jersey. She is Robert F. Goheen Professor, Council of the Humanities, Princeton University. She is the author of five other novels: Paradise, The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, which won the 1978 National Book Critics Award for fiction, Tar Baby and Beloved, which won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. - (Random House, Inc.)

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"Easily she stepped into the told story that lay before her." Toni Morrison's reading of Beloved is a stirring experience. She transports you to the dooryard, to Sweet Home plantation, to 124 Bluestone Road as she weaves in and out of the story of Sethe, a runaway slave, and her daughters. Morrison is there with you, speaking slowly, making each image live in your imagination. She speaks of colors--a pink tongue, a blue handkerchief, yellow flowers--each hue becomes so vivid against a background of browns, blacks and gray. She tells of unimaginable hardship and tragedy, and makes the power of the words get you through it. Morrison handles the dialogue among characters with impressive skill, not for characterization, but for the pacing and rhythm that is so essential to her literature. Banter is, at times, very contemporary, while other conversations have a highly stylized and mystical tone. Anyone who has read Beloved in the written form will be stunned by how much more Morrison has to share in the oral form. Don't miss this treasured author and storyteller at her magnificent work. R.F.W. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner Copyright 1999 AudioFile Reviews

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