Paradise

Toni Morrison · 1931–2019 · USA

Why it matters

An all-Black Oklahoma town's men raid a nearby refuge of troubled women, certain they're protecting their utopia from corruption. Morrison's 'They shot the white girl first' opens a novel about who gets to build paradise, and who gets purged to keep it pure.

At a glance

A large ensemble cast and a structure that withholds and scrambles key facts resist easy tracking.