From Booklist
Naylor's debut, the critically acclaimed The Women of Brewster Place (1982), was the first in a quartet of novels built on a fictional universe of intertwined stories and characters. But at the time of its publication, Naylor did not see herself as a writer, having only recently graduated from Brooklyn College, recovered from a failed marriage, and failed as a minister with the Jehovah's Witnesses. By the time Mama Day was published in 1988, Naylor felt she had gotten her bearings as a writer. In this collection of 24 interviews, arranged chronologically from the publication of The Women of Brewster Place to the publication of The Men of Brewster Place (2000), Naylor discusses her decidedly feminist and nationalist perspectives, and her impressions of magical realism, as well as her writing methods (letting her characters speak through her, waiting for their stories to unfold). The interviews include a dialogue with Toni Morrison, whose novel The Bluest Eye inspired Naylor to write, and a dialogue with Pearl Cleage. Naylor fans will love this book. Vanessa Bush
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Book Description
In 1982, one year after graduating from Brooklyn College, Gloria Naylor (b. 1950) made her debut on the literary scene with The Women of Brewster Place. The novel was critically acclaimed, filmed as a made-for-television movie, and turned into a television mini-series. Naylor's output now includes five novels, an edited collection of short stories, two theater projects, and a series of articles, essays, notes, and an unpublished work that combines fiction and nonfiction. Conversations with Gloria Naylor collects her interviews and shows her to be one of the most talented novelists to emerge in the past twenty years. The twenty-four that are included range from 1983, soon after the publication of her first novel, to 2000, following the publication of The Men of Brewster Place. Altogether they shed light on Naylor in all her wit, wisdom, and candor. She is the first among the current generation of African American women novelists to have made a study of her literary predecessors. Interviews with her are compelling in their revelation of the evolutionary journey of a self-professed introvert and dreamer who is as indebted to the English classics as she is to blues, jazz, or Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. An indispensable resource for a study of Naylor's life and art, Conversations with Gloria Naylor offers rare insight into works that are in the vanguard of contemporary American literature.


About the Author
Maxine Lavon Montgomery is an associate professor of English at Florida State University and the author of Apocalypse in African-American Fiction.