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This is one of Toni's last books and, I believe, one of her best. It is highly condensed (only 140 pages), but wonderfully written. It is the story of a black veteran of the Korean War with undiagnosed PTSD and his voyage home to a small Georgia town. He meets violence and racism on his way and nearly doesn't make it and when he gets there, he discovers that his sister has had huge issues of her own. What I especially loved, besides the typical awesome writing of Morrison, was the speech that his sister gets from her Aunt about picking herself up and respecting herself - a message that I try as hard as I can to transmit to my own daughter. A truly beautiful book.

A few quotes:
"Back was the free-floating rage, the self-loathing disguised as somebody else’s fault."(p. 15).
When he reached the cotton fields beyond Lotus, he saw acres of pink blossoms spread under the malevolent sun. They would turn red and drop to the ground in a few days to let the young bolls through. (p. 118)
mix. The Bulova watch was still there. No stem, no hands—the way time functioned in Lotus, pure and subject to anybody’s interpretation. (p. 120)
grave. Once it was heaped over with soil, Frank took two nails and the sanded piece of wood from his pocket. With a rock he pounded it into the tree trunk. One nail bent uselessly, but the other held well enough to expose the words he had painted on the wooden marker. Here Stands A Man. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but he could have sworn the sweet bay was pleased to agree. Its olive-green leaves went wild in the glow of a fat cherry-red sun. (pp. 144-146)

and my favorite:

Don’t let Lenore or some trifling boyfriend and certainly no devil doctor decide who you are. That’s slavery. Somewhere inside you is that free person I’m talking about. Locate her and let her do some good in the world.� (p. 126)