Okay, I'm going to be a total nerd here, but this is a nerdy, a proudly nerdy episode.

At the end of Tony Morrison's novel Sula, which is my personal favorite, one of the major characters' last lines is, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl.

Girl, girl, girl, girl.

She knew. She knew. She knew. She knew she was missing her girl. I love that. It's so good. Well, I'm Sayy Jones. And I'm Zach Stafford, and you were listening to Vibe Check. Girl, girl, girl, girl, girl. Girl, girl. I am so excited. Oh, how I have, Zach knows, I've been waiting for this episode because today we have a special guest novelist Namwali Serpel. She's a friend, a neighbor here in Cambridge, a writer, a literary critic, and a professor of English at Harvard University. And I'm so excited because I get to talk to her

about her new book on Morrison, which explores the work and career, of course, of acclaimed

novelist Tony Morrison.

And listeners, when this was book, Syed was delighted to undersell it. He was so exhilarated and so exhilarated and so ready, so prepared that I lived by a thing I live by all the time, which is a door may open, but I don't need to always walk through it. You know, doors open in your life. It's for you. And I looked at the script and I read the book and I said, door is not for me this is just for sai joe it's funny because it makes me think the first morrison book I read was the bluest eye it was when she was on Oprah when you know it just seemed super accessible I was in the seventh grade on summer vacation and suddenly her books were all at the airport I don't know if you remember that era oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I got a copy of the bluest eye, little seventh grade, Said. And it was exactly how you described. I think I even put it in my memoir. It was like stepping into a creek and then stepping right the fuck out. I said, I don't know what. Nope. I don't know what's going on here.

But that's Morrison's work.

It is shocking and exhilarating.

Your nervous system turns on when you read it.

I remember the first time I read The Bluest Eye and in the Prelude, we talk about the song in the show, but the character talks about how when why becomes too much to bear,

take refuge in how, I think about,

and then the book begins.

And I just think about that all the time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's a great conversation.

And in fact, Namali and I talk in detail about difficulty and what that really means.

And the benefits of leaning into it because I love Morrison's work, but it's challenging.

Some of our novels, I'm thinking Song of Solomon, took me almost a decade to read beginning to end.

Like I was reading it in fits and starts over the years, and the truth was I think I had to grow as a reader, but I also had to grow as a person.

The Song goes on in particular is the story of a young man coming into himself. And I think I just was like, I don't know what's going on. And so I love that. So we talk about the importance of double reading, so re-reading and what's great about that and of course our personal relationships to Morrison's

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