The Women of Brewster Place

By: Gloria Naylor

Narrated by: Tonya Pinkins

The National Book Award-winning novel—and contemporary classic—that launched the brilliant career of Gloria Naylor, now with a foreword by Tayari Jones

“[A] shrewd and lyrical portrayal of many of the realities of black life . . . Naylor bravely risks sentimentality and melodrama to write her compassion and outrage large, and she pulls it off triumphantly.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Brims with inventiveness—and relevance.” —NPR's Fresh Air

In her heralded first novel, Gloria Naylor weaves together the stories of seven women living in Brewster Place, a bleak-inner city sanctuary, creating a powerful, moving portrait of the strengths, struggles, and hopes of black women in America. Vulnerable and resilient, openhanded and openhearted, these women forge their lives in a place that in turn threatens and protects—a common prison and a shared home. Naylor renders both loving and painful human experiences with simple eloquence and uncommon intuition in this touching and unforgettable read.©1980 Gloria Naylor; (P)1993 Penguin HighBridge Audio

Critic reviews

"[Naylor's] ardent inventiveness as a storyteller and the complex individuality she gives to each of her seven main characters make the novel so much more than a contrived literary assembly line. . . . Deftly, Naylor gathers all these individual stories into one climactic narrative that works through the reader via a word-by-word sense of horror and outrage. . . . The Women of Brewster Place, born of the details of a particular time and community, also turns out to be one of those, yes, universal stories depicting how we, the fallen, seek grace.”
—Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air

“The most refreshing voice in the black idiom since readers first discovered Toni Morrison.”
—Claude Brown, author of Manchild in the Promised Land

“Naylor creates a completely believable, and very frightening, world of degradation, violence and human—very human—courage and sturdiness.”
—Chicago Sun-Times

“Vibrating with undisguised emotion, The Women of Brewster Place springs from the same roots that produces the blues. Like them, [Naylor’s] book sings of sorrow proudly borne by black women in America.”
—The Washington Post

Great book

The book is very well written and easy to follow. It’s extremely depressing though. Don’t expect many resolutions.

a classic for a reason

The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor was first published in 1982. It tells the stories of seven African-American women living in poverty in an unnamed norther US city during the 1970s. The book is told in interlocking, connected short stories, with each one focusing on a different woman. Naylor weaves their relationships and their neighborhood together with each new story. The place is bleak and sad but their lives are rich, real and full.

Mattie Michael is the matriarch of Brewster Place. She is often meddling, but she guides the women and aids every decision made in the neighborhood. Kiswana is the name chosen by a woman who used to be called Melanie Brown. She is a college-dropout, feminist and activist. She leads the neighborhood into an organized association. Her influence is especially helpful to Cora Lee who is a single mother to eight and living in a two bedroom apartment. After seeing a live production of A Midsummer Night's Dream we have hope that Cora Lee's life is moving in a new direction. Also on the block are Sophie, who is nosy and intrusive, a gay couple (both teachers) named Lorraine and Teresa, and Mattie's friend Etta Mae. Sophie acts as an antagonist, and attempts to create tension between the other neighbors. When Kiswana determines to hold a fundraiser/block party we get to see all the women interact with one another a well as many previous residents. We also see how hard life was for the gay couple during that era.

I would love to find the adaptation done 30ish years ago if anyone knows where it can be viewed.

Good story, excellent narration.

I really appreciated the way she went in to different voices for different characters.

Like poetry

Beautifully read. I do wish the audio could have removed the sounds of the reader’s mouth (lips/dry tongue/etc). It was distracting in the slower more poetic parts. But overall such a well written tale of the hardships some women endure and performed exquisitely.

The narrator gives it a certain charm

Exquisite narration, actually sounds like a black woman during the time period which enhances immersion