Song of Solomon

Milkman stood before his mirror and glanced, in the low light of the wall lamp, at his reflection. He was, as usual, unimpressed with what he saw. He had a fine enough face. Eyes women complimented...

Her steady beam of love was unsettling, and she had never dropped those expressions of affection that had been so loveable in her childhood. (1.1.23)

They wondered if one of those things that racial-uplift groups were always organizing was taking place. (1.1.7)

In 1936 there were very few among them who lived as well as Macon Dead. (1.2.32)

That propertied Negro who handled his business so well and who lived in the big house on Not Doctor Street had a sister who had a daughter but no husband, and that daughter had a daughter but no hu...

Scattered here and there, his houses stretched up beyond him like squat ghosts with hooded eyes. He didn’t like to look at them in this light. During the day they were reassuring to see; now...

And the one person who dared to but didn’t care to was the one person in the world he hated more than his wife in spite of the fact that she was his sister. (1.1.17)

"So when we left Circe’s big house we didn’t have no place to go, so we just walked around and lived in them woods. Farm country. […] We were lost then. And talking about dark! Yo...

They alone had a sense of adventure and were flagrant in their enjoyment of the automobile’s plushness. Each had a window to herself and commanded an unobstructed view of the summer day flyin...

"I don’t know who and I don’t know why. I just know what I’m telling you: what, when, and where." (1.2.42)