Sula

Sula is a 1973 novel by American author Toni Morrison, her second to be published after The Bluest Eye (1970). Plot summary The Bottom was a black neighborhood on a hill above the fictional town of Medallion, Ohio, set to be bulldozed at the beginning of the novel for the creation of a golf course. The Bottom originated as an agreement between a white farmer and his black slave. The farmer had promised freedom and a piece of valley land to his slave should he complete some difficult chores. Upon the completion of the chores the farmer regrets his end of the bargain, no longer wanting to give up the land. In order to get out of the arrangement, the farmer feigns regret to the slave over having to give him valley land rather than "Bottom" land. The farmer claimed that "Bottom" land (actually located on top of a hill) would be better than valley land because it was closer to the bottom of heaven. The story is organized by chronological chapters labeled with years. In "1919," the first named character, handsome Shadrack returns from World War I a shattered man, suffering from shell shock or PTSD and unable to accept the world he used to belong in. As a way to compartmentalize the unpredictable nature of death, Shadrack invents a National Suicide Day to be held annually on January 3rd. Shadrack proposed that Medallion citizens could kill themselves or each other on this day and be free from death for the rest of the year. The town begrudgingly accepts Shadrack as apart of their community despite his outbursts. In "1920" and "1921," the narrator contrasts the families of the children Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who both grow up with no father figure. Nel, the product of a mother knee deep in social conventions, grows up in a stable home. Nel is initially torn between the rigid conventionality of her mother Helene Wright, who dislikes Sula's family instantly, and her inherent curiosity with the world, which she discovers on a trip. Though she vows to explore more of the world, she ultimately never leaves The Bottom again. This experience ultimately prompts Nel to begin a friendship with Sula. The Peace family is the opposite: she lives with her grandmother Eva and her mother Hannah, both of whom are seen by the town as eccentric, loose, yet Hannah was genuinely loved by all men, and Eva was very respected by all women. Their house serves as a home for three informally adopted boys and a steady stream of boarders.