PRAISE FOR TONI MORRISON’S SPIRITUAL VISION “Nadra Nittle has written just the book we need: an engaging and thorough consideration of Toni Morrison’s religious vision. For too long Morrison’s significant spiritual influence has been unspoken or, at best, misunderstood. No more. Nittle skillfully journeys through the novelist’s life, fiction, and faith and retains Morrison’s paradoxes while offering readers essential truths: ‘Catholicism . . . did not exist in the margins of Morrison’s life,’ she writes. Nittle concludes that Morrison ‘told the public what she thought they should know: she was a Catholic, she took matters of faith seriously, and that wasn’t up for debate’— and shows an expert understanding of the novelist’s sensibility.” — Nick Ripatrazone, author of Longing for an Absent God “In Nadra Nittle’s Toni Morrison’s Spiritual Vision, the author masterfully details the myriad ways Morrison weaved religion, spirituality, and African and African American folklore into her stories. Nittle’s book is a wonderful exploration of how Morrison combined her religious background, including her Catholic faith, with the African American tradition (dating back to the African tradition) of storytelling. Exploring com- mon themes throughout Morrison’s work, this book is a must- have for fans who want a deeper dive into what made the late writer’s stories so compellingly magical.” — Del Sandeen, author of Maya Angelou: Writer and Activist “In this lively study, Nadra Nittle presides over religion, his- tory, culture, and literary aesthetics to bring to us nothing less than the Gospel according to Toni Morrison. Elements of Black history, African folklore, theology, classical mythology, and bib- lical typology gather at the seams of Morrison’s spiritual cos- mogeny. The communities populating her gothic landscapes transcend moral history. In the transhistorical sweep of the story Nittle tells, the living struggle, falter, and rise only to find that destiny is rarely appointed. And redemption in Morrison’s alternative economy of salvation is a quasi- autonomous quest for the many lives and many selves that make up an American self- hood. Integrating disciplines and genres, this suggestive work will garner a wide readership. Morrison fans will cheer its jour- nalistic eloquence, archival analysis, and provocative payoffs and, most of all, its unfolding revelations of a Nobel laureate in the making.” — Gregory S. Jackson, Rutgers University, author of The Word and Its Witness: The Spiritualization of American Realism “Toni Morrison’s Spiritual Vision: Faith, Folktales, and Feminism in Her Life and Literature is the seminal text for anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of an underappreciated yet central part of Morrison’s life and literature: her Catholic faith.” — Ekemini Uwan, public theologian and cohost of Truth’s Table podcast TONI MORRISON S ʼ SPIRITUAL VISION FAITH, FOLKTALES, AND FEMINISM IN HER LIFE AND LITERATURE TONI MORRISON S ’ SPIRITUAL VISION FAITH, FOLKTALES, AND FEMINISM IN HER LIFE AND LITERATURE NADRA NITTLE FORTRESS PRESS MINNEAPOLIS TONI MORRISON’S SPIRITUAL VISION Faith, Folktales, and Feminism in Her Life and Literature Copyright © 2021 Fortress Press, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email [email protected] or write to Permissions, Fortress Press, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440- 1209. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™ Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are from the King James Version. Scripture quotations marked (DRA) are from the Douay– Rheims 1899 American Edition. Cover image: © Getty Image 2021; Toni Morrison, Paris Match, Issue 3302 by Sebastien Micke/Contour. Cover design: Lindsey Owens Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-7151-8 eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-7152-5 Contents 1 Black, Christian, and Feminist: Toni Morrison’s Village Literature 1 2 A Magical Black Heritage 25 3 Black and Catholic: A Long Tradition 49 4 Sula’s Deconstruction of the Madonna, the Whore, and the Witch 81 5 The Folklore and Holy Women of Song of Solomon and Beloved 109 6 Paradise’s Black Madonna and Afro- Catholicism 141 7 A Literary Legacy of Resilience 163 Notes 177 Index 185 1 Black, Christian, and Feminist Toni Morrison’s Village Literature “Invisible to whom? Not to me.”1 Toni Morrison once made this quip about Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel Invisible Man to distinguish herself from the Black male writers who came before her. She suspected that authors such as Ellison, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin— who described his inner critic as the “little white man deep inside of all of us”2— wrote books with white readers in mind. Morrison pointed out that while white people appear in her books, she crafted her novels without “having the white critic sit on your shoulder and approve it.”3 Instead, Morrison wrote her books first and foremost for Black people, a choice for which she refused to apologize. Just as Tolstoy wrote for a Russian audience, she explained, she was writing for Black readers— many of whom have 1