Paradise by
Toni Morrison

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In Paradise- her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature- Toni Morrison gives a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Rugby ( pop.360 ), in defence of 'the one all-black town worth the pain', assault the nearby convent and the women in it. From the town`s ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void "out there..where random and organised evil erupted when and where it chose". Richly imagined and elegantly composed, Paradise weaves a powerful mystery.
Toni Morrison is Robert F. Goheen professor at Princeton University. She has written six previous novels, and has received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993.

Here's what the members of the Reading Group based at our Raheny branch library think of Paradise:

The Paradise of the title is a small town called Ruby (population 360) in Oklahoma where a community of black Americans moving from the South, ultimately find refuge or haven. This is a closed community which actively discourages outsiders, providing no facilities for passing travellers, e.g. no motel, diner etc. - outsiders are seen as a threat. In the opening pages of the book we are aware that evil is lurking in this paradise and that an atrocity is about to be perpetrated on a nearby former convent, occupied by a flotsam and jetsam of some four or five women passing through, who have found shelter and a kind of healing there.
When the people first settled in Ruby a sense of community, self help and material support pervaded. With the coming of prosperity this earlier spirit is eroded. Self-interest takes over with the community leaders becoming wealthy at the expense of the less well off. The outside world is kept at bay and those finding the atmosphere claustrophobic leave. In such a world fear and suspicion of difference grows like a cancer and ultimately leads to the attack on the convent.
The author seems to be engaged in an examination of the evolving role of black America in the wider society. The message, if there is one, is that a society looking inward will wither: it must look outward and accept diversity or else become like their former masters in the South, bigotted, racist, judgemental.
The story of Ruby and its complexities are gradually peeled away, the prejudices where black is superior to lighter skin shades, where women have a subordinate role but who are more aware of the looming crisis. The attack on the convent, when it comes, is shocking in its violence and vengeful hatred, but for some it is ultimately cathartic. This is an absorbibg book that never disappoints and has an ending I am still trying to figure out.
(Member of Raheny Library Reading Group)

The story is set in Oklahoma , in an imaginary town called Ruby . Ruby is a prosperous town started by twelve black families , who want to keep the town pure and black . At the other end of the town is the " Convent " . The convent is inhabited by four women who are all running away from their difficult or violent backgrounds . The book gives the history of the families in the town and the women in the convent . The convent serves a purpose for some of the men in the town who have had affairs with the convent women , and also for some of the women in the town who have used it as a refuge when needed . The Minister and the leading men in the town feel the convent is a blot on the town's character . The story is reminiscent of white townships and their need to keep blacks out . I found the book very demanding to read . It was difficult trying to remember the backgrounds of the twelve families in Ruby and the women in the convent . However I liked the way her characters developed , and their relationships with each other . I thought the way she connected the opening scenes with the end of the book was very effective . It opens with the murder of one of the convent women . The book then tells the story and how this came about . The book ends with a different version of the opening scenes. I also liked the way all the townspeople were black . As a reader it really forced one to stretch one's imagination to see only black people as the characters and in the situations the author presented . There was also a strong sense of good and evil , right and wrong . For me , this was an interesting book to read , but it would not be my first choice for the IMPAC Award .
( Member of Raheny Library Reading Group )