Paradise
Toni Morrison
Knopf, $25

Even after the Pulitzer, the Nobel, and the news that Oprah Winfrey was starring in this fall's film version of her book Beloved, Toni Morrison, the Robert F. Goheen ['40 *48] Professor in the Humanities, didn't simply kick back to collect prizes and royalties and read her favorite P. D. James mysteries. First, she faced the big crises: Soon after she deposited her $818,000 Nobel check in a rather inaccessible retirement account, her house in Grand Viewon-Hudson, New York, burned down.

Then there were the petty annoyances, like students in her creative writing seminar grousing about having to rewrite their stories. To top it off, her publisher wouldn't even let her name her new novel.

Paradise hit bookstores in January, but Morrison wanted to call it War. It begins with a six-shot staccato sentence: "They kill the white girl first." Explains Morrison, "I wanted to open with somebody's finger on the trigger, to close when it was pulled, and to have the whole novel exist in that moment of the decision to kill or not." Knopf feared the title War might turn off Morrison fans. "I'm still not convinced they were right," she says.

The new book finishes a trilogy begun with her 1987 masterpiece, Beloved, the tale of a runaway slave who would rather kill her children than see them captured. It was followed by 1992's Jazz, which imitates the musical form's lean dissonance. Paradise completes the trilogy's arc of inquiry into the dangers of excessive love -- for children, mates, or God. It also addresses a question that has always intrigued Morrison: "Why paradise necessitates exclusion."

The book is set in all-black Ruby, Oklahoma, founded by settlers who had been turned away by a town of lighter-skinned blacks. It is a community, they hope, insulated from "Out There where every cluster of whitemen looked like a posse."

But by 1968, the outside is seeping in, with graffiti of blackpower fists and murmurings of illicit abortions. Soon, town residents pinpoint scapegoats for all their ills: five magic
practicing women living in a former convent. These women are not "color coded," as Morrison puts it, and the reader has no way of knowing their race. It is a bold literary device: In struggling to figure out which of the women is white, the reader is forced to ask why that detail even matters.

Initial reviews for Paradise have been less than stellar. While praising the book's lush lyricism, critics have noted heavyhanded foreshadowing and contrived plot devices. In retrospect, Morrison wishes she had had more time to "take a step back" between the time she finished the manuscript and the publication date, which was moved up from the spring to cash in on the heavy postholiday bookstore traffic.

But casual readers may struggle with Morrison's writing, which often combines the magic realism of Gabriel García Márquez with the convoluted plotting of William Faulkner. Even Song of Solomon, arguably her most straightforward novel, was deemed too hard by many when Oprah Winfrey tapped it for her book club. Morrison is sympathetic, to a point. "People's anticipation now more than ever for linear, chronological stories is intense because that's the way narrative is revealed in TV and movies," she says. "But we experience life as the present moment, the anticipation of the future, and a lot of slices of the past."

Though Morrison worries about the accessibility of her prose, she has been pleasantly surprised while scanning Internet chat rooms devoted to her work. '"The sort of lively, intelligent conversations going on there are something," she says. "They are articulate about what they loathe."

But in her 66 years, the sharecropper's granddaughter from Lorain, Ohio, has acquired the stature to absorb most criticism. "I've stopped dreaming about kneecapping," she jokes. In fact, she would rather have people grapple with her work than merely revere it. "I have people tell me, 'Your novel is on my bed stand.' I don't want books to be what people dip into before they go to sleep."

-- Anna Mulrine

Adapted from an article in the January 19 U.S. News & World Report.� 1998.

Dan Massad '69 shows pastels

Dan Massad '69, artist-in-residence at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pennsylvania, is a patient man. Working primarily in pastels on paper, Massad spends five hours a day in his studio, sometimes completing only two square inches. "Per Gradus" (left) is one of the pieces to be shown at the Tatistcheff Gallery, on 57th Street, in New York during April.

"Each image requires around three months of full-time studio work to complete. Solo shows are therefore infrequent," Massad says. His work is in the collections of major museums around the country, including the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Theater:
Searching for love on the Internet

Vanessa Marshall '91 stars in Raoul's Bedroom, her one-woman, multimedia show, at the Hudson Avenue Theatre in Hollywood, California, Thursdays and Fridays through April 3.

Raoul's Bedroom is about Raoul Rajneesh Pattell and his attempt to find a wife online via the "Cyber-Dating Game." Marshall, who earned an MFA in acting from New York University, plays Raoul and his 10 cyber-dates.

David Rodwin '92 directs the show, Sean Mewshaw '97 created the interactive video effects, and Alex Woo '93 is the dramaturge. Dallas Dickenson '95 created the show's Website, home.earthlink.net/~vanbill.

(For more information, phone 213-938-3683.)

Overcoming learning disabilities
Goals, persistence, and mentors are critical for success

Success fascinates Americans. Triumph over adversity is a story we never tire of. And in Exceeding Expectations: Successful Adults with Learning Disabilities, by Henry B. Reiff '75 and two colleagues, we can read about 71 people who overcame learning disabilities (some severe) to become, among other professions, a paleontologist, land developer, biomedical engineer, and accountant. Half have annual incomes above $60,000, and 29 hold doctorates. Many never did learn to read, write, spell, or compute particularly well, the authors note, but acquired knowledge through a combination of pluck and resourcefulness.

Although Exceeding Expectations is mainly a textbook, full of documentation of studies and research in learning disabilities, the authors state they wanted to bring a "holistic approach" to their work. Their subjects' quotes and personal reflections soften the book's otherwise pedagogical tone.

Through extensive interviews, Reiff, who is associate dean of academic affairs at Western Maryland College, and his coauthors analyzed their subjects' individual triumphs and created a model for others to consider in duplicating their subjects' success, which the authors conclude was determined by internal factors such as making a decision to take control (rather than allowing the learning disabilities to limit opportunity), possessing a strong desire to excel, and setting goals.

External factors figure in success as well, including being persistent, choosing a supportive environment in which to work, and intentionally selecting mentors. Learned creativity, the ability to manipulate a situation to highlight strengths and downplay weaknesses, also plays a key role.

Adults confronting their own learning disabilities will find inspiration in the book. They may also find help in how to best approach an employer about special accommodations. For parents guiding children with learning disabilities toward what they hope to be a successful future, the advice of these 71 adults will provide food for thought.

-- Maria LoBiondo

Maria LoBiondo is a freelance writer living in Princeton.

Music:
Mama knows, Mama cares

I love being a mother," says Tina deVaron '78, whose new CD, If Mama Ain't Happy, features 11 songs about motherhood. "I stopped writing songs when I went to college. I began again when my 10-year-old was born. The kids busted open whatever it was that was holding me back."

DeVaron makes her living as a freelance singer and pianist. One of her songs, "Adore You," is on the group Anointed's album Under the Influence, which is up for a Grammy this year.

Somebody

Somebody gotta do the drivin'
Somebody gotta pick up the milk
Somebody's gotta be reliable
And know the answers to the math homework
Somebody gotta wipe off the table
Somebody gotta match up the socks
Somebody gotta remind them
Wash your hands, come to supper, turn the TV off

Feel like you're livin' in the car
Always pickin' up, droppin' off, pickin' up
And it feels like nobody notices
A thing you do
But they know who you are
You're their Somebody
All the time -- you're their Somebody
all your life -- you thought you were nobody
But you're their Somebody

Somebody gotta take out the splinters
Somebody gotta heave the broken toys
Somebody gotta know the difference
Between a tired cry and a desperate noise

And you grab them if they run into the street
Or if they get to close to the flame
When they smash or cut or bruise or bleed
You hear your name
Cause you're their Somebody . . .

Books Received

Leadership for an Age of Higher Consciousness, by Swami Krishnapada, a.k.a. John E. Favors '72, (Hari-Nama Press, $23) -- a how-to guide on combining consciousness raising and leadership skills.

The Greatest Baby Name Book Ever, by Carol McD. Wallace '77 (Avon, $6.99) -- features more than 20,000 names from Aaron to Zureidy.

White Women, Black Men: Illicit Sex in the 19th Century South, by Martha Hodes *87 (Yale, $30) -- an explanation and analysis of how white Southerners responded to sexual relations between white women and black men, both pre- and post-Civil War. Hodes is an assistant professor of history at New York University.