Customer Reviews

Linden Hills (Contemporary American Fiction)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
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In this thought-provoking and beautifully written novel, Gloria Naylor explores complex issues of social class within the parameters of a black affluent community. While on the outside the residents of Linden Hills seem to revel in the glamorous lifestyles and social status they work so hard to obtain, the reality is quite different. Naylor allows the reader a glimpse behind the Porches and the Beverly Hills style mansions into the souls of several Linden Hills residents. With each one of their stories we begin to understand the price paid for material success. Naylor makes some interesting connections between the accumulation of wealth and loss of racial identity. A unique and original novel - I wholeheartedly recommend it.

This was the second novel of Gloria Naylor's that was assigned to me by Dr.Taylor-Thompson(Texas Southern U.) and at first I found it to be a strange and complex book. I often talked with Dr.Thompson to make sure I was getting the point. To my surprise I was and started to enjoy the book once I realized what was going on. The story I've been told mirrors that of Amiri Baraka's(LeRoi Jones)Dante's Inferno, which I also plan to read.

What I found so compelling about this story was how the residence seem to believe they were nothing if they didn't live on certain streets within Linden Hills, an affluent African American suburb. They were educated, money hunger and strange all in one. Willie the main character and narrator, along with his bestfriend Lester take us on a journey beyond the walls of these strange peoples homes and into their lives for an unforgettable experience. They introduce us to people like Luther Nedeed, Willa Prescott-Nedeed, Xavier Donnell, Rev.Michael T.Hollis and Laurel Dumont to name a few. What the story reveals is greed, the need for power and more power and the hierachy of what they believed life to truly be. I'm planning and looking forward to reading this book again. Naylor's style of writing maybe complex at first but, you'll soon get over that and find the book very thought-provoking. You'll then be hooked ready to read her other wondeful novels. I recommend this book to all, especially english teachers in middle school and beyond for their students

I first read this book for an AP english class my senior year of high school, shortly after we had read _The Inferno_. It's a very beautiful book, although indeed sometimes the gorgeous writing is describing some very painful things. Naylor seems to have the ability to delineate her character's inner self with very revealing language - the pastor who serves his flock but also is an alcoholic, the young gay man who must marry a woman or risk losing a prosperous future. The story deals with how people trap themselves, put themselves into hell - the Satan-figure hardly needs to act to ensnare them because they're too busy snaring themselves. Very powerful, very moving, very good book that reads smoothly.

Borrowing its theme and structure from Dante's Inferno, Gloria Naylor's Linden Hills deals with the destructive path of upwardly mobile suburban blacks as they plunge into a world of progressive meaninglessness and material "possession." And there is a connection to Graham Swift's Waterland: the need for stories and story-telling at the root of, describing our being. Before the very successful exectuive Laurel plunges thirty feet to her death, she requests her 80-year-old grandmother Roberta to tell her stories of growing up, to give her substance and meaning to her empty existence.

In this work about black people, about a northeast town owned and built by the owners of the local morgue, resentment is endemic. "A wad of spit-a beautiful, black wad of spit right in the white eye of America." Post-slavery politics and the ironies of culture in America, racial prejudice and segragation and class conflicts, even within the African-American community, and the preciousness of the imagination and of free expression are at the heart of this book. Run by five generations of morgue caretakers, the Luther Needed family are the replacements for white oppression in an all-black town. The frog-like Luthers always married a pale bride who spewed forth a miniature Luther frog, that is, until Willa Prescott Nedeed, who is dark herself, but bares a pale sickly creature unnamed and unwanted by his father, is taught to spell Sinclair by his mother.

The story covers the course of six days. One way Naylor deconstructs the official history is in her attempt to subvert linear notions of causation, which is a post-modernist reaction to the traditional Aristotelian linear narrative form. Not only does Naylor fuse together various parts of narratively disjointed fiction into one integrated whole, she also, through language, fuses "memory" to a present reality to create an integrated whole. This happens again: The day after Willie's prophetic dream of a missing face, "he swung himself down the ladder at the far end, the high aquamarine walls looming over him as he ran. Pink and beige stains were slowly spreading form Laurel's body into the surrounding snow. From the angle of the neck, she couldn't possibly be alive, but he had the irrational fear that she might be suffocating...Without thinking, he turned her over."
While Willie experiences the memory of this prophetic dream come to life, Naylor switches scenes-and typeface- to allow Willa, still locked captive in the basement, to complete the fusion of memory with a present reality by speaking the words that Willie would have said: "Her face was gone."

Naylor's book shows how people's nonquestioning, their acceptance and passivity-impulses opposed to the world creation of the artist-get them in trouble. Hers is a world of essential homelessness, of beings uprooted, torn from the bedrock of their homeland and thrown into modern America. In attempting to put black man's mark upon the new world, the townspeople of Linden Hills are more apt to put a black mark on the new world-a black mark that is more like the white devils they are trying to counter than any hopeful ideal. Naylor shows that the enemy is within or, at the limit, that there is no enemy. Things are not black and white or, there is black in white, white in black. The miscegenation has already always begun. At once a work of questioning, and one embracing the colorful revisionism of an artist dealing in the human materials of desperation, Naylor's message is cryptically hopeful: "an ebony jewel that reflected the soul of Wayne County but reflected it black."

Linden Hills is a timeless book about "success", andthe frightening consequences of selling out to "the highestbidder". The story portrays the tragically successful neighborhood of Linden Hills, 3 generations deep in Black progess and the American dream. But now, as Luther Nedeed tries to keep up his father's and grandfather's traditions in the modern times, it becomes fragmented and falls apart. Now, instead of requiring only the work of the residents, Linden Hills wants their very dreams and souls: A young lawyer must give up the love of his life for a sham of a marriage, a preacher gives up the word of God for power and pretention, a young businesswoman lets the world tell her what's important instead of looking inside herself until it's too late. And 2 young men from both sides of the tracks discover the horrid reality and lead to its demise as they work their way through the neighborhood for holiday spending money. Incredible, prophetic, educa! ting book.!!!READ IT!!!!

Naylor's work is genius, but to truly enjoy it, readers must first check out Dante's Inferno. Linden Hills parallels this book, describing the nine levels of Hell that exist in the African-American suburb. Naylor takes the readers through each level, getting closer to the final and most evil level, where Luther resides. Linden Hills is a complex novel incorporating African-Americans' struggles with the American dream, accepting inevitable evils that accompany the search for this dream, and the lengths people go to for power and wealth. Many readers say this book is depressing, however, to fully understand the purpose and meaning of it, you must read Dante's Inferno.

I have to admit, when I first started reading this book, I thought it was weird. Then I realized what was going on and thought it was one of the best books I've read in a long time. Now I plan to read the rest of Gloria Naylor's books. Very though provoking and real. Everyone should read this book. Everyone!!

This novel stands far above most contemporary American literature. It's an intricate, smoothly allegorical warning about the dangers of climbing our society's class ladder. The network of allegorical symbolism works beautifully. And, along with that, the characters are highly credible as human beings whose thoughts and feelings deserve our sympathy. Except those dastardly Luther Nedeeds, of course, whose devil-like natures make them perfect, yet also perfectly tempting, occupants of the lowest circle of Naylor's Inferno. If you find this novel confusing at first, stick with it--the whole structure, a visit downward through various contemporary temptations and their potential costs--will become clear soon enough. Love, love, and love--that's where this book finally finds salvation. (Great companion piece: Where We Stand: Class Matters, by bell hooks.)

Linden Hills is one of the creepiest books I've read, and certainly one of the most enjoyable. Gloria Naylor is a beautiful writer, hands down. Although her language is full of symbol and metaphor, she is still easily accesssable. I read Linden Hills after reading The Women of Brewster Place and expected something similar: stories of different people's stuggles with racism and class. Though I loved WBP, Linden Hills has an extra element, a feeling of being sucked down into disparity. The characters are all looking tho climb the social ladder of the bourgeois black comminuty. However, truly they seek a descent, both literally (the most coveted addresses are at the bottom of the hills) and figuratively (losing themselves and their souls to advance socially). I think this is a great book not only for its lessons about society, appearece and status, but also beacsue Naylor is a gifted storyteller. I finished this book within a day of starting it because I couldn't put it down. I'm dissapointed that Naylor isn't as highly recognized as some other contemorary authors: she definitely deserves a place beside Morrison for her beauty of language and Steinbeck for her examination of the human spirit in a crushing society. Bravo!

Gloria Naylor's writing style may be too involved for some, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This book makes you think about classism, racism, sexism and all the other ism's. It's my favorite out of all of her books.