“Love”
by Toni Morrison
Published: January 2005
ISBN: 067697676X

(Updated: July 16, 2005.)

From the Publisher…

From the internationally acclaimed Nobel laureate comes a richly conceived novel that illuminates the full spectrum of desire.

May, Christine, Heed, Junior, Vida — even L: all women obsessed by Bill Cosey. More than the wealthy owner of the famous Cosey Hotel and Resort, he shapes their yearnings for father, husband, lover, guardian, friend, yearnings that dominate the lives of these women long after his death. Yet while he is both the void in, and the centre of, their stories, he himself is driven by secret forces — a troubled past and a spellbinding woman named Celestial.

I’m sure that my impression of this book falls victim to my reading order. This was the first book I picked up after Fall on Your Knees and I am completely convinced that the power and punch of that work detracted from the — particularly — subtle and wafting wisdom of Ms. Morrison’s writing.

I enjoyed this book. I enjoyed how the texture of "air" (quite viscerally) kept changing through it. I enjoyed the seemingly nonchalent bits of wisdom that wafted by, to be caught or not, as the case may be. And, I am quite convinced that in another reading, my “couldn’t wait to get back to it” would be higher than a three out of five hearts but, for me, this time, that’s what it was.