The Men of Brewster Place $16.07 Gloria Naylor revisits the dilapidated brick walls, sagging ceilings, and decrepit plumbing of Brewster Place, a feeble fortress that jealously guards the hell, heartache, and hope of its tenants. Ben, the kind, alcoholic janitor from The Women of Brewster Place returns as a mythical minstrel of sorts, wandering in and out of the lives of Brewster's male denizens, introducing their stories, each a quest for the meaning of manhood. For autistic Brother Jerome, masculine identity comes in the form of a rickety upright piano whose missing keys and wobbly wires burst to life when he plays. Jerome plays so well (better than Count Basie, mind you) that his hedonistic mother decides not to institutionalize him so she can charge for his performances. Eugene, however, has a more difficult act to shore: he's married, he's a father, and he's gay. Ceil, his wife, doesn't know that's why he keeps leaving, so she takes family matters into her own hands and sends Eugene into a bottomless pit of guilt and self-loathing. Basil looks for his redemption in a contemptuous trash bag named Keisha and her two beautiful, neglected sons, Jason and Eddie. Will Basil find atonement for his sins against his mother if he gives those boys what he never received as a child? The men of Brewster Place continue to stream into the story in raw, biting vignettes until the stage is full and the future of their community is threatened. Can these men come together and reclaim what's theirs? The answer lies at the root of self-worth and sexual identity. Or, in the words of Ben, "Brewster Place is a small street but it seems there's an endless supply of I coulda, I shoulda, but didn't. Can you call it any man's blues? I don't know, but you can definitely call it the black man's blues." --Rebekah Warren 16.07 Click here to buy it!

The Women of Brewster Place $9.56 It chronicles the communal strength of seven diverse black women who live in decaying rented houses on a walled-off street of an urban neighborhood. As the middle-aged matriarch of the group, Mattie Michael is a source of comfort and strength. She recalls her past tragedies in flashbacks. Her close friend, Etta Mae Johnson, is a restless free spirit who repeatedly attaches herself to disappointing men. Embracing racial pride, idealistic Kiswana Browne initially disparages her mother's middle-class values but later accepts them. Mattie saves the long-suffering Ciel Turner from self-destruction after she barely endures a series of personal disasters. Kiswana helps Cora Lee, a young unmarried mother, realize that her many children should not be treated like dolls. Lorraine seeks social acceptance, unlike her outspoken lesbian lover, Theresa. When she is gang-raped, Lorraine is deranged by the attack and murders one of her only supporters, Ben, the kind janitor of Brewster Place. At the novel's end the women angrily demolish the wall that separates them from the rest of the city. $9.56 Click here to buy it!

Bailey's Cafe $9.60 Here, Naylor's limbo, peopled by tortured beings ``at the hopeless crossroads of [their] lives,'' is a darkly lyrical, both sad and warming, psychic way-station--an American backstreet cafe with terrible food, no cheering camaraderie, and a door that empties into nowhere--or, even scarier, Somewhere. Bailey (not his real name), who runs the cafe with his tough, silent partner Nadine, offers a few autobiographical ``tidbits'' and knows he's at the grill for the same reason the cafe's customers come in from everywhere. These are people on the edge who need a space to ``take a breather.'' These are the hurt, the deeply wounded. Even the ``one-note players''--like a Bible-shouter and a pimp--``got a life underneath.'' Then there are the life-crippled victims: the lady Sadie, a decaying prostitute, scoured by cruelty; Sweet Esther, who tends perverts and white roses in the dark; Peaches the nympho; and Jessie the druggie, ``robbed'' of husband and son. The women live with Eve in her boardinghouse by a garden, where visiting men must buy flowers for entrance. Eve, born of Delta dust, expelled from her home with Godfather (Bible emanations bobble here and there), gives some women a place to stay, is severe, fair, and can create hell. Also at Eve's is ``Miss Maple,'' a brilliant young man--an American superachiever, rejected and humiliated because he's black. (Once, he--like some others--steps out the cafe's backdoor into the void, ``since the place sits right on the margin between the edge of the world and infinite possibility.'') And what could cause the souls in limbo to clap and sing? A richly melodic telling of sad tales--of innocence outraged and civilization smothered--and, again, as in Naylor's Mama Day (1988) and Linden Hills (1985), with a satiric glint and a generous dollop of the supernatural, plus the chill of apocalyptic voices. $9.60 Click here to buy it!

Mama Day $9.60 Gloria Naylor's fictional island, Willow Springs, is home to a few black families who have lived there since time of Sapphira Wade, a "true conjure woman" who could "walk through a lightning storm without being touched" and who, as legend has it, may or may not have murdered the white landowner who was first her owner and then her husband and/or lover. Located between Georgia and South Carolina but a part of neither, Willow Springs is a place that resembles and yet makes strange the rest of the world. Like women anywhere, women from Willow Springs worry about not having children and are jealous of their spouses - but here they use secret rituals to become pregnant and cast spells over rivals. Here Ophelia Day (nicknamed Cocoa) returns every August from New York City, eventually bringing her new, native northeastern husband George; here, a hurricane, evil spells, jealousy, and tragedy combine to teach her about the power of love and family. Here also is Mama Day, Sapphira's great-granddaughter and Cocoa's great-aunt, who has powers that the sophisticated Cocoa only senses and the practical George recognizes much too late. His sacrifice and Mama Day's love for her family and respect for her world teach us, "It ain't about right or wrong, truth or lies; it's about a slave woman who brought a whole new meaning to both them words, soon as you cross over here from beyond the bridge." 9.60 Click here to buy it!

Linden Hills $9.56 One of Naylor's most treasured early novels, Linden Hills chronicles the life and times of African Americans of a higher economic class than her other novels, but still relates a story that all of us can identify with. The emotions and experiences reflected in Gloria's work are truly universal. 9.56 Click here to buy it!