Reading Order
SulaToni Morrison Sula Reading Order
Toni Morrison's Sula (1973) is her most formally daring novel — a study of female friendship and community that refuses to offer conventional moral judgment, set in the Bottom, a Black hilltop community in Ohio, between 1919 and 1965. The novel follows the lifelong relationship between Sula Peace, who leaves the Bottom to explore the wider world, and Nel Wright, who stays and becomes a proper married woman; the novel refuses to judge either choice and instead explores what each choice costs. Morrison's most compressed and most radical novel, and the essential early companion to Beloved.
Where to start
Beloved
Complete Sula Book List
- 1Buy
Beloved
Toni Morrison·1987·The essential Morrison — the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about Sethe, the formerly enslaved woman haunted by the ghost of her daughter; read this first if you are new to Morrison. - 2Buy
Sula
Toni Morrison·1973·The novel itself — Morrison's study of female friendship in the Black community of the Bottom in Ohio, 1919–1965; her most formally daring work. - 3Buy
The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison·1970·Morrison's debut novel — Pecola Breedlove, who prays for blue eyes; darker and more formally experimental than Sula, and the essential companion in her early period. - 4Buy
Song of Solomon
Toni Morrison·1977·Morrison's National Book Award-winning novel — Milkman Dead's journey into his family's Southern history; the most narratively accessible of her major works and the best next step after Sula. - 5Buy
Tar Baby
Toni Morrison·1981·Morrison's most satirical novel — Jadine Childs and Son's conflict on a Caribbean island, organized around the folk-tale archetype of the tar baby; the essential companion in Morrison's middle period. - 6Buy
Jazz
Toni Morrison·1992·Morrison's Harlem Renaissance novel — Joe Trace's murder of his young lover Dorcas in 1926 New York; the companion to Beloved in Morrison's so-called Beloved trilogy, narrated by a self-aware narrative voice that is one of the most original experiments in American fiction. - 7Buy
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston·1937·The essential companion from the Harlem Renaissance — Janie Crawford's search for her own voice and love in rural Florida; the novel Morrison described as the only novel by a Black woman she could recall reading in her youth.
Sula — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Toni Morrison's Sula about?
Sula is a study of female friendship and community in the fictional Black hilltop town of the Bottom in Ohio, following the lifelong relationship between Sula Peace and Nel Wright from childhood through old age. The novel refuses to judge Sula's freedom and Nel's conventionality, instead exploring what each choice costs the women who made them.
What order should I read Toni Morrison's novels?
The standard recommendation is to begin with Beloved (1987), then move to Morrison's earlier novels — The Bluest Eye (1970) and Sula (1973) — and the companion Jazz (1992). Song of Solomon (1977) is the most narratively accessible. The Beloved–Jazz–Paradise trilogy can be read as a sequence.
Is Sula a good first Morrison novel?
Song of Solomon or Beloved are better first Morrisons — both are more narratively accessible. Sula is more compressed and formally radical, and it tends to hit hardest when you already have a feel for Morrison's method. That said, it is shorter than either and its compressed power is undeniable.
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