Recitatif by Toni Morrison
Fiction
First published in 1983 (new edition in 2022)
Finished on December 8, 2024
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)
Publisher's Blurb:
Twyla and Roberta have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in the St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable at the time, they lose touch as they grow older, only to find each other later at a diner, then at a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and in disagreement each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.
Written in 1980 and anthologized in a number of collections, this is the first time Recitatif is being published as a stand-alone hardcover. In the story, Twyla's and Roberta's races remain ambiguous. We know that one is white and one is black, but which is which? And who is right about the race of the woman the girls tormented at the orphanage?
Morrison herself described this story as "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial." Recitatif is a remarkable look into what keeps us together and what keeps us apart, and about how perceptions are made tangible by reality.
I took the advice of another reader and saved Zadie Smith's extensive introduction until I had finished reading Morrison's short story. Recitatif is a work that would be best read and discussed in a book group (or perhaps in a college literature class). The story is straightforward enough, but the underlying themes about race (and the perception of racial codes), as well as memory, are deep and thought-provoking. Smith's erudite analysis is helpful, although at times it was too cerebral. Again, one to discuss with others.
