Beloved

The house at 124 Bluestone Road was filled with sorrow in 1873. Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman who lives there, is tormented by her past—literally and figuratively. The malevolent spirit of her deceased “crawling already” daughter haunts the house. While Sethe pays it no mind, her friendless surviving daughter, 18-year-old Denver, finds the spirit comforting. When Paul D, a man from Sethe’s past enslavement, arrives, he immediately chases the spirit away, starts a relationship with Sethe, and moves in. Soon afterward, they find near the house a soaking wet young woman calling herself Beloved. Beloved’s mysterious presence slowly unravels into something more sinister as memories and secrets unfold. Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize–winning 1987 masterpiece lyrically unearths pain and loneliness within its characters. Historically challenged for its depictions of sexual assault and violence, the book unabashedly doesn’t shy away from the grittiness of life for Black Americans during and after enslavement. Told primarily in the third person, everyone’s thoughts, opinions, and feelings bounce from one horrific memory to the next.