Sublime. Took me a chapter to get into it, but after that it was really compelling. The life of a boy that grows to be a feckless man, discovering his roots, and maybe some introspection. But that doesn't do the depth, the clever (but not too clever) plotting, the beautiful depictions of characters, the political heft... Left me in awe of Toni Morrison's craft. ( )

This was my first time to read a Toni Morrison novel. It was beautiful. The way it blends and juxtaposes well known mythology and fairy tales with folk tales from the community and all the symbolism in everything- it's like piecing together a puzzle. The language is beautiful itself but the story is also intriguing, regardless of which character it turns to. It keeps you on your toes and the transformation of the main character is intriguing. Mixing fact and fiction, corporeal with supernatural, and recorded history vs. communal history- what a combination. ( )

Originally published in 1977 - The story begins in 1931 and is set in the fictitious town of Mercy, Michigan. It is a coming of age story of a young negro boy named Macon Dead Jr, nicknamed Milkman because he was breastfed by his mother until he was 4 years old, raised in a severely dysfunctional family where it seems anything goes. He grows up wanting to fly, to be free of all the things that is holding him down. When he starts to learn about the deep, dark secrets kept in the family, feeling very insignificant in life, he decided he wanted out.

His mother, Ruth, apparently had an incestual relationship with her father who was murdered by her asshole of a husband, Macon Dead, for his money. She was so heartbroken that she crawled into bed naked with him and sucked on his fingers. But neither were going to tell because now they both had one on the other. His Aunt Pilate, an unmarried spiritualist and bootlegger, lives simply with no running water or electricity, has an unmarried daughter, who also has a daughter, Hagar…all three living together. Pilate carried around a bag of bones she called “Solomon”, and when asked, she merely stated it was her inheritance. Milkman had a three-year fling with his cousin Hagar who had fallen hopelessly in love with him that when he broke it off, she couldn’t function in life. Milkman’s relationship with his best friend, Guitar, also from a broken home, started to fall apart because Guitar chose the seedy life and got involved with a group who were determined to kill a white person for every black person killed.

Milkman travels back to his grandfather’s homeland in Danville, Pennsylvania, hoping to retrieve some gold supposedly still hidden in a cave where his dad and his Aunt Pilate hid out for a night after their father was murdered by white men for his farmland. The kids buried him best they could, but Milkman learned from the townsmen that his body ended up washing up in the river and the white men had thrown his body in the same cave where Macon and Pilate had stayed and, incidentally, had killed out of fear, an old white bum living inside that cave. Macon had found some gold hidden in the back of that cave but Pilate wasn’t interested in the gold. She was so upset that her and Macon fought and went separate ways. Pilate had gone back 3 years later, encouraged by her father’s spirit, to claim the bones. If you kill someone, you own them. They stay with you forever, even if just in your mind, and you must take responsibility for them. So, she did. She gathered the bones and carried them around with her everywhere she went, claiming it was her inheritance, and believing it was the white man’s bones, but later learned that it was her grandfather Solomon’s bones. So what happened to the white man's bones? Story never says.

What Milkman learned was that his family name was well-known and respected in this small town. His grandfather was a hardworking farmer, who started out clearing 10-acres of farm and ended up with 30-acres of a successful farming business, something to be proud of. He did find the cave, but no gold, which he promised to split with his so-called friend, Guitar.

He then decided to make a trip to Virginia, a little town named Shalimar, where his ancestors were from and where he learns of his heritage about his great-grandfather, Solomon, who abandoned his twenty-one sons, his grandfather being the youngest, and wife. Folklore had it, his body literally lifted out of the field trying to take his grandfather with him. But his grandfather accidentally dropped out of his arms. Solomon flew back to Africa, never to be seen again. Nearly everyone in town was related and songs were sung by children about him. He was the one who escaped slavery, but it left everyone else destitute. I believe the meaning of the title of the book, Song of Solomon, refers to the plight and dysfunction of Solomon’s people after they were broken. But, Milkman, finding his roots and knowing where he came from cleared his mind and proved that he was important and had a lot to be proud of. He was anxious to get back home and tell his family.

Toni Morrison writes with a lot of underlying meanings. But, the very last sentence of the book, which refers to Milkman just before he jumps, or flies off the cliff, so his friend Guitar doesn’t have to shoot him dead for not coming up with the gold: “For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride the air”, didn’t make a lick of sense to me, and I know it was supposed to mean something deep…because I’m pretty sure Milkman died. If he was finally free and happy enough to fly, I would think he was finally able to change the course of his family to the better moving forward. But, since he flew off the cliff and killed himself, surely, she’s not saying the only way out of their dysfunctional plight is to commit suicide. ( )

Milkman is adrift. Caught between his parents, distant from his sisters, misunderstood by his best friend. This is his attempt to find his place in the world - an existential quest that leads him into the tangled past of his family history.

Milkman is a cipher. Because he is a reflection of the hopes and fears of those around him, he lacks any real personality himself. He lives in the shadow of his father and grandfather. "Everyone wants a black man's life," his best friend Guitar tells him. It is almost as if the life is being sucked from him. ( )

A well-written book that touches on a lot of the psychology, sociology, and economic identity of a group of black people living in the north. The plot feels much more meandering and less focused than some of Morrison's other work. ( )