Linden Hills

By letting her mythic imagination spring free from the constraints of old-fashioned realism, Naylor has produced an ambitious novel that aspires to be nothing less than a contemporary reading of Dante's 'Inferno' ... One is quickly beguiled ... so gracefully does Naylor fuse together the epic and the naturalistic, the magical and the real -- Michiko Kakutani * New York Times *
Naylor's humour, both sad and satiric, is distinctive; Willie and Lester are vital, earthy, boisterously irreverent guides . . . this is a haunting homiletic-with a cohesive strength of statement concerning Black aspiration within a tarnished American Dream * Kirkus *
Gloria Naylor is gifted with timeless wisdom, bottomless empathy, and limitless language. Her novels will shine a light for readers and writers for generations to come -- Tayari Jones, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE
Irrefutably, Gloria Naylor was one of the greatest novelists who ever lived. Every single one of her works was masterful, crafted with the kind of rare artistic brilliance that places her in extremely limited company. She is likely best known for her National Book Award-winning debut work, The Women of Brewster Place, but that is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Whether the divine Bailey's Cafe, the haunting Linden Hills, or the exquisite Mama Day (one of my favorite novels of all-time), Naylor's skill in weaving together culture, heartbreak, joy, magic, terror, laughter, pain, and love-which is to say, life-is extraordinary. There is something both mundane and cosmic about her writing that captures the human condition in a way that perhaps no other writer did or will. Her work is, for me, a shout, a praisesong, a hosanna, a hallelujah, a Black fist in the air; àse! She holds a hallowed place in the canon, and also in hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits. She was one of the blessed ones -- Robert Jones, Jr., author of The New York Times bestselling novel, THE PROPHETS