The Measure of Our Lives: A Gathering of Wisdom

At once the ideal introduction to Toni Morrison and a lovely and moving keepsake for her devoted readers: a treasury of quotations from her work. With a foreword by Zadie Smith. “She was our conscience. Our seer. Our truthteller.” —Oprah Winfrey Through bricolage—a construction or creation from a diverse range of available things—this brief book aims to evoke the totality of Toni Morrison’s literary vision and achievement. It dramatizes the life of her powerful mind by juxtaposing quotations, one to a page, drawn from her entire body of work, both fiction and nonfiction—from The Bluest Eye to God Help the Child, from Playing in the Dark to The Source of Self-Regard. Its compelling sequence of flashes of revelation—stunning for their linguistic originality, keenness of psychological observation, and philosophical profundity—addresses issues of abiding interest in Morrison’s work: the reach of language for the ineffable; transcendence through imagination; the self and its discontents; the vicissitudes of love; the whirligig of memory; the singular power of women; the original American sin of slavery; the bankruptcy of racial oppression; the complex humanity and art of black people. The Measure of Our Lives brims with elegance of style and authority.