Reading Order
Song of Solomon Reading Order
Song of Solomon (1977) by Toni Morrison won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was the novel that established her as one of the major American writers of her generation — a multigenerational saga and a novel of naming, identity, and flight, following Milkman Dead (born Macon Dead III, given his name because a neighbor saw his mother nursing him at an inappropriately late age) from his birth in a Michigan town through his search for a family inheritance (gold), which becomes a search for his own history and identity, ending in the legendary Shalimar of Virginia where his ancestor Solomon is said to have flown back to Africa. The novel draws on the African-American oral tradition of the flying Africans — the belief, preserved in slave narratives and folk tales, that some enslaved Africans had the power to fly back to Africa and escape slavery. Morrison uses this tradition not as magic realism in the García Márquez sense but as a layered historical reality: the stories people tell about where they come from and who they are have the same ontological weight as 'factual' history, and Milkman's quest is for the story that will tell him who he is. The novel is also a comprehensive anatomy of African-American social life — the Dead family's class anxiety, the political radicalism of Milkman's friend Guitar, the women's networks of Pilate and her daughter and granddaughter — and a study of what happens when a young man spends his life taking and only learns, at the end, to give.
Where to start
Song of Solomon — any Vintage International edition. The novel benefits from re-reading: Morrison structures the revelation of Milkman's ancestry gradually, and many details become significant only in retrospect.
Complete Song of Solomon Book List
- 1Buy
Song of Solomon
Toni Morrison·1977·The novel — Milkman's search for gold that becomes a search for ancestry; the flying African legend and the question of what a man's name means. - 2Buy
Beloved
Toni Morrison·1987·Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel — the American slavery trauma haunting the living; the companion that extends Song of Solomon's inquiry into the slavery past. - 3Buy
Sula
Toni Morrison·1973·Morrison's preceding novel — female friendship and community in an Ohio Black neighborhood; the companion to Song of Solomon in its anatomy of African-American social life. - 4Buy
The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison·1970·Morrison's debut novel — a Black girl's desire for blue eyes in 1940s Ohio; the earliest expression of the concerns that Song of Solomon develops. - 5Buy
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston·1937·Hurston's Harlem Renaissance novel — the comparison point in the tradition of African-American women's fiction; Janie's quest for self-knowledge is the female counterpart to Milkman's quest. - 6Buy
Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison·1952·Ellison's Black American classic — the male African-American protagonist's search for identity in an America that cannot see him; the formal predecessor to Milkman's quest. - 7Buy
Homegoing
Yaa Gyasi·2016·Gyasi's Ghanaian-American multigenerational novel — the contemporary companion to Song of Solomon's historical reach; the Atlantic world that Solomon flew back to, traced from the African side. - 8Buy
Go Tell It on the Mountain
James Baldwin·1953·Baldwin's autobiographical first novel — African-American religious and family life in Harlem; the essential companion in the African-American literary tradition.
Song of Solomon — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Song of Solomon about?
Song of Solomon follows Macon Dead III — called 'Milkman' — from his birth in a Michigan town in the late 1930s through his adulthood. Milkman grows up in a Black middle-class family: his father Macon Dead II is a cold, property-obsessed landlord; his mother Ruth is a gentle, melancholy woman still defined by her love for her dead father; his aunt Pilate is a woman born without a navel who lives outside conventional society and keeps her dead father's bones in a bag. The first half of the novel traces Milkman's aimless youth and his friendship with the politically radical Guitar. In the second half, Milkman travels south in search of a family inheritance (gold he believes is hidden in a cave in Virginia) and discovers instead the story of his ancestors — his grandfather Macon Dead, who was killed for his land by white men, and his great-grandfather Solomon, who is the subject of a children's song in the Virginia village of Shalimar and who, in legend, flew back to Africa to escape slavery.
What is the flying African legend and how does Morrison use it?
The 'flying African' is a tradition preserved in slave narratives, folk tales, and collective memory of the African-American South: the belief that some enslaved Africans had the power to fly back to Africa and escape slavery. The legend appears most famously in the Gullah communities of the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, where it was preserved with particular vividness. Morrison draws on this tradition to create the mythological backbone of Song of Solomon: Solomon (Milkman's great-grandfather) is said to have flown back to Africa, abandoning his wife Ryna and his twenty-one children. The legend is the source of the children's song that Milkman hears in Shalimar and that is the key to decoding his ancestry. Morrison uses the flying African not as magic realism (she does not insist on the literal truth of the flight) but as a way of exploring how the stories people tell about their origins constitute a form of knowledge as valid as written history.
What is the significance of names in the novel?
Song of Solomon is obsessed with names and their meanings. The novel's first scene describes how the Dead family's surname originated: Milkman's grandfather, a freed slave, registered his name with a drunk or careless Freedmen's Bureau official who listed 'Dead' as his name (perhaps mishearing 'dead' as the answer to where his father came from). Pilate, Milkman's aunt, carries her name as a mark of literacy — her father couldn't read and chose it randomly from the Bible, not knowing who Pilate was. Milkman's own name is a secret nickname, never his official name. Morrison uses the instability of African-American names — names given by slave-owners, names chosen from lists not understood, names given by neighbors' observations — to explore how African Americans have had to construct identity from materials that are often second-hand and arbitrary.
Who is Guitar and what does he represent?
Guitar Bains is Milkman's closest friend — a Black man from the same Michigan town who has become radicalized after seeing his family's poverty and the unpunished murder of Black men. Guitar is a member of the Seven Days, a secret group that commits acts of retaliation against white people in response to the unpunished murder of Black people — an eye for an eye, timed to the same day of the week as the original murder. Guitar represents the tradition of Black political radicalism that Morrison takes seriously even as she shows its ultimate cost. The relationship between Milkman (who inherits his father's class privilege and self-absorption) and Guitar (who has nothing and everything to lose) is the novel's central human relationship, and its deterioration — as Guitar's radicalism turns into a personal violence that targets Milkman himself — is one of its tragedies.
What should I read after Song of Solomon?
After Song of Solomon, Morrison's Beloved (1987) is the essential next step — her Pulitzer Prize-winning account of slavery's trauma haunting the living. Sula (1973) is Morrison's preceding novel and a companion in its anatomy of African-American community life. The Bluest Eye (1970) is her debut. For the African-American literary tradition Song of Solomon belongs to, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man are foundational. For the flying African tradition specifically, Julie Dash's film Daughters of the Dust (1991) is a visual companion. For scholarly work on Morrison, Toni Morrison: An Introduction (2015) by Carolyn Denard and the essays collected in Morrison's Playing in the Dark (1992) are important.
Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.