CRITICISM

Awkward, Michael. “Authorial Dreams of Wholeness: (Dis)Unity, (Literary) Parentage, and The Women of Brewster Place.” In Inspiriting Influences: Tradition, Revision, and Afro-American Women's Novels, pp. 97–134. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.

Awkward discusses the literary precursors which influenced Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place and the narrative strategy Naylor employs in the novel.

Bobo, Jacqueline, and Ellen Seiter. “Black Feminism and Media Criticism: The Women of Brewster Place.” Screen 32, no. 3 (autumn 1991): 286–302.

Bobo and Seiter explore the television adaptation of Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place and how it fits into the history of black feminism and media criticism.

Christian, Barbara. “Naylor's Geography: Community, Class and Patriarchy in The Women of Brewster Place and Linden Hills.” In Gloria Naylor: Critical Perspectives Past and Present, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K. A. Appiah, pp. 106–25. New York: Amistad, 1993.

Christian discusses the geographical landscape Naylor created in her first two novels—The Women of Brewster Place and Linden Hills—and the implications of community, class, and patriarchal structure in both works.

Erickson, Peter. “Shakespeare's Changing Status in the Novels of Gloria Naylor.” In Rewriting Shakespeare, Rewriting Ourselves, pp. 124–45. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

Erickson traces Naylor's use of Shakespearean allusions throughout her first three novels and attempts to explain why Naylor uses Shakespeare as a reference point.

Lattin, Patricia Hopkins. “Naylor's Engaged and Empowered Narratee.” CLA Journal 41, no. 4 (June 1998): 452-69.

Lattin deconstructs the difficult narrative strategy Naylor employs in Mama Day.

Lynch, Michael F. “The Wall and the Mirror in the Promised Land: The City in the Novels of Gloria Naylor.” In The City in African-American Literature, edited by Yoshinobu Hakutani and Robert Butler, pp. 181–95. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University, 1995.

Lynch examines the urban landscapes often described in Naylor's fiction.

Meisenhelder, Susan. “‘The Whole Picture’ in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day.” African American Review 27, no. 3 (fall 1993): 405–19.

Meisenhelder discusses how Naylor uses the relationship between George and Cocoa in Mama Day to explore the issue of black identity.

Tanner, Laura E. “Reading Rape: Sanctuary and The Women of Brewster Place.” American Literature 62, no. 4 (December 1990): 559–82.

Tanner explores how William Faulkner's Sanctuary and Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place portray rape and how each author's representation affects the reader.

Tucker, Lindsey. “Recovering the Conjure Woman: Texts and Contexts in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day.” African American Review 28, no. 2 (summer 1994): 173–88.

Tucker discusses how Naylor subverts the often negative image of the conjure woman through her character Miranda Day in Mama Day.

Additional coverage of Naylor's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: African American Writers, Vols. 1, 2; American Writers Supplement, Vol. 8; Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Vols. 6, 39; Black Literature Criticism, Ed. 3; Black Writers, Eds. 2, 3; Contemporary Authors, Vol. 107; Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vols. 27, 51, 74; Contemporary Novelists; Contemporary Popular Writers; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 173; DISCovering Authors; DISCovering Authors 3.0; DISCovering Authors: Canadian Edition; DISCovering Authors Modules: Most-Studied, Multicultural, Novelists, and Popular and Genre Writers; Feminist Writers; Literature Resource Center; Major 20th-Century Writers, Eds. 1, 2; Novels for Students, Vols. 4, 7; Reference Guide to American Literature; and World Literature Criticism Supplement.