Two young girls, their lives shaped by family secrets, become friends in their loneliness. Myths offer scant sanctuary and the harshness of reality soon takes it toil. First published in 1973, Sula is Morrison's second novel and in many aspects contains the seeds of her 1988 Pulitzer Prize winning classic Beloved. While several of the characters belong to the stock band of the weird and wounded central to Morrison's work, the most dramatic quality she brings to this dense, magical and accomplished narrative is an absolute control of rich prose which balances the vernacular and the poetic. Beloved and Jazz (1992) have been rightly acknowledged as masterpieces, yet even as early as Sula, Morrison, who so shrewdly reads gender, race, misjustice and betrayal in chronicling her American Genesis, had already developed a uniquely rhythmic voice confidently expressing her wisdom, vision and deliberate artistry.
