When readers think of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison's books, they think of her novels: Beloved, Song of Solomon, and other towering achievements. "Toni Morrison's books" has a different meaning in Dana A. Williams's Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship, a remarkable exploration of Morrison's work on the other side of the writer's desk.
Morrison (1931-2019) began working for Random House in the late 1960s and left in the 1980s to pursue writing full-time. Along the way, Morrison became the publisher's first Black female senior editor. During her tenure at Random House, Morrison was determined, as Williams puts it, "to use her editorship to move Black culture from the margin to the center." This is reflected in Morrison's work with writers like Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones and with consequential public figures like Muhammad Ali and Angela Davis, whose autobiographies Morrison shepherded into existence; Williams dedicates individual chapters to Morrison's dealings with each of these authors, among others.
For the long-gestating Toni at Random, Williams (In the Light of Likeness) had Morrison's cooperation, as well as access to her Random House correspondence, allowing readers to peer through a previously unopened window onto her intellect and temperament. ("No author tells me what to do in that area" Morrison fumes at writer Barbara Chase-Riboud at one point.) Scenes of Morrison scrambling to secure book blurbs from big-name writers are almost poignant when read with the knowledge that one day her literary stature would match theirs. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer