"The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison

“The Bluest Eye” was Toni Morrison’s first novel which she published in 1970 when she was 39 years old. It is a haunting tale about racism, incest and child molestation set in Lorain, Ohio, where Morrison grew up. The year is 1941, following the great depression at the beginning of World War ll. At the center of the novel is Pecola Breedlove, an 11-year-old foster children sent to live with the MacTeer family. Pecola meets the family’s two daughters Claudia, age 9, and Frieda, age 10, with whom she will be living. Claudia narrates part of the novel, and the relationship that develops between the girls and their new roommate. Pecola has spent her childhood being told she is “ugly” by her parents and other because of her dark skin and eyes. Unable to process the abuse she has suffered, Pecola instead dreams of magically developing blue eyes so she can be told she is “beautiful” like Shirley Temple. Morrison’s writing is lyrical, full of sadness and sorrow, but also features moments of survival and strength – and eventually loss. The book turned 50 years old this year, and Hilton Als wrote in “The New Yorker Magazine” that the book “cut a new path through the American literary landscape by placing young black girls at the center of the story.” Morrison once said she wrote the book because she wanted to read it. Novels like “The Blue Eye” are not easy to read, but they are necessary to read, to witness the injustice of racism and sexual abuse and to forge new paths and roads to stop them.  Click here to purchase this book on Amazon.