The Men of Brewster Place
51 pages • 1-hour read
Gloria NaylorThe Men of Brewster Place
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Background
Authorial Context: Gloria Naylor and African American Literature
Content Warning: This section mentions racism, death and murder, anti-gay bias, and sexual violence.
Born in New York City in 1950, Gloria Naylor was an American writer and key figure in African American literature. Her parents were former sharecroppers from Mississippi who moved north looking for a better life. Despite having little education, Naylor’s mother always encouraged her daughter to read and write. She excelled in school but postponed a college education to become a Jehovah’s Witness missionary. Naylor spent several years working in Florida, North Carolina, and New York before enrolling in Medgar Evers College in 1975. Naylor initially studied nursing before switching to English. In her college English classes, Naylor encountered the work of great female African American writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree in 1981 and completed a master’s degree in African American studies at Yale University.
Naylor published her debut novel, The Women of Brewster Place, in 1982. The novel won the National Book Award and quickly became a classic of African American literature, earning Naylor praise for her lyrical prose and unique narrative techniques. Naylor followed up The Women of Brewster Place with several other novels that focused on the female African American experience, including Linden Hills (1985), Mama Day (1988), and Bailey’s Cafe (1992). She published the sequel to The Women of Brewster Place, The Men of Brewster Place, in 1998. In addition to writing, Naylor taught at several universities, including Boston University, New York University, and Cornell University. She died in 2016.
Series Context: The Women of Brewster Place
The Men of Brewster Place is a sequel or companion novel to Naylor’s debut work, The Women of Brewster Place.
First published in 1982, The Women of Brewster Place tells seven interconnected stories of African American women living in the same decaying inner-city housing block. It explores the systemic racism and sexism these women face and how they survive through bonds of sisterhood and community. Mattie Michaels uses her house as collateral to bail her only son, Basil, out of jail and loses everything when he breaks his bond agreement. Etta Mae Johnson spends her life flitting from one man to the next and thinks that she has found husband material in the Reverend Woods, only to be disappointed when he only wants a one-night stand. Kiswana Browne is a young Black woman who dropped out of college to join the Black Power movement with her boyfriend, Abshu. Ceil Turner dreams of a happy family with her husband, Eugene, only to have her dreams crushed when her daughter is killed and her husband leaves her. Cora Lee loves babies and continues having children even though she doesn’t know what to do with them when they grow up.
A lesbian couple, Lorraine and Theresa, move to Brewster Place, hoping to escape the ostracization they experience in other communities. Although they are accepted at first, Brewster Place slowly turns against the women as rumors about their relationship spread, and a young criminal named C.C. Baker brutally rapes Lorraine, leaving her for dead. Traumatized, Lorraine kills Ben, Brewster Place’s janitor, with a brick. Brewster Place is shocked by this tragedy, and the final scene sees the women coming together in a dream and tearing down the wall that makes Brewster Place a dead-end street, symbolizing the barriers they face in society.
In The Women of Brewster Place, Black men are often portrayed as another force that marginalizes and oppresses Black women. However, The Men of Brewster Place explores the men’s side of the story, complicating and subverting a violent and oppressive picture of Black masculinity.
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