Linden Hills (Contemporary American Fiction Series)

This is a well-crafted work that highlights the complexities and nuisances of life. Naylor beautifully weaves together the personal triumphs and challenges of people in a small community who outwardly seem to have it all. The skillful story development allows the audience to explore rich themes around race, class, and more while getting lost in the unfolding narratives. Definitely a must-read!

Gloria Naylor is a prolific writer and storyteller. I read this book over 20 + years ago. I never forgot how wonderful and compelling the story was. I had to have it for my collection and my summer read. It did not disappoint! It was as if I was reading it for the first time all over again.

Linden Hills is a very clever reworking of Dante's Inferno, revealing the dark empty heart of a Black community striving for status under white capitalism. I was completely captivated by it. It's a strange book with a concept right out of grad school, (Naylor began the novel while at Yale according to wikipedia) yet it works precisely because of the strange, surreal touches the source material inspires.This is less a review than a warning: my missing star is for the kindle edition which has lots of garbled words and a section (during the funeral sequence,) in which huge chunks of text are completely out of order. You will be able to piece it together but really, how do these terrible kindle editions from big publishers sit on here for years with these embarrassing quality problems? Get it together!

This has GOT to be one of the STRANGEST books I have EVER READ! For that reason I must give it 5 stars. It held my attention and I even went back to re-read certain sections weeks after I finished reading it.

Great prose and phenomenal symbolize of all sorts. Organized well, but something was missing for me. For one thing it was way too wordy. For example, there was too much verbiage given to marginal characters. There was no real meat to their introduction and from there, they were left hanging like a dangling participle. The main characters were interesting and held my attention. Linden Hills is a place many of us aspire to be. It is an idea, A dream, A hope, A desire. One thing for sure, its different to different people, and whatever your Linden Hills might be, beware that all that glitters is not gold.

Great book

Good read. Intriguing, captivating and descriptive. I really enjoyed reading this book.

This a must have for Ms. Naylor fans. I was so sad when I found out she has passed away.Let's honor her by keeping her books alive!

I found it was a nice book a n a good edition

a must-read specially for all black persons everywhere.

Gloria Naylor cannot write bad literature. Both "The Women of Brewster Place" and its sequel "The Men of Brewster Place" are impressive, and hardly a novel has drawn me in as much as "Mama Day" did - it even made me cry which is not an easy feat for a novel. "Linden Hills" is certainly not bad either but it pales in comparison. The "Brewster Place" novels provided panoramas of characters whose lives intersected, and their relationships gained importance in the course of the novel. "Linden Hills" also works with many characters but it has a more episodic feel to it because many of these characters are hardly mentioned again after the chapters they figure in. There are certainly highly artistic aspects to the novel - the image of a woman trying to gain a sense of identity by figuring out the personalities of the wives of her husband's forefathers is gripping - but somehow, there is a sense of disconnexion looming over the whole novel.Oh well, this was Gloria Naylor's second novel, and "Sula", Toni Morrison's follow-up to "The Bluest Eye" was not as good as the first one. Later, Morrison wrote "Beloved" and Naylor "Mama Day" - so obviously I will go on reading other Naylor novels - it is always rewarding - but some are breathtaking and some are just good - "Linden Hills" belongs to the latter category.