Recitatif: A Story

"Three years after her death, it still seems reasonable to mourn that we’ll have no more novels from Toni Morrison. But, luckily, Morrison’s sole foray into short fiction, Recitatif, was released in book form earlier this year. The story tracks two girls from their first meeting at a shelter for wards of the state to chance encounters later in life. It’s powerful, and the characters impeccably formed, as we would expect from Morrison. Race is central to its two characters’ interactions, but the reader is never told which character is Black and which is white. The implications of that decision require more space than is allotted here, but the result is so worth the read."