{"product_id":"can-t-i-love-what-i-criticize-9780820381305","title":"Can't I Love What I Criticize?: The Masculine and Morrison","description":"Taking a close look at all the key male figures in Toni Morrison’s eight novels, this book explores Morrison’s admitted, but critically neglected, interest in the relationships between African American men and women and the “axes” on which these relationships turn. While most Morrison scholarship deals with her female characters, Can’t I Love What I Criticize? offers a response to this imbalance and to Morrison’s call for more work on men, who remain, in her words, “outside of that little community value thing.”The book also considers the barriers between Black men and women thrown up by their participation in a larger, historically racist culture of competition, ownership, sexual repression, and fixed ideals about physical beauty and romantic love. Black women, Morrison says, bear their crosses “extremely well,” and Black men, although they have been routinely emasculated by “white men, period,” have managed to maintain a feisty “magic” that everybody wants but nobody else has.   Understanding Morrison’s treatment of her male characters becomes crucial to grasping her success in “countering the damage done by a spectrum of sometimes misguided isms”—including white American feminism. Morrison’s version of masculinity suggests that Black men have “successfully retained their special vitality in spite of white male resistance” and that “their connections to Black women have saved their lives.” To single out her men is not to negate the preeminence of her women; rather, it is to recognize the interconnectedness and balance between them.\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication date:\u003c\/strong\u003e 15 September 2026\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePage count:\u003c\/strong\u003e 352\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e Height 229 mm; Width 152 mm\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e University of Georgia Press\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780820381305\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Susan Neal Mayberry","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50481285103866,"sku":"9780820381305","price":33.05,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0522\/4297\/2845\/files\/9780820381305.jpg?v=1790036506","url":"https:\/\/shulphink.com\/products\/can-t-i-love-what-i-criticize-9780820381305","provider":"Shulph Ink","version":"1.0","type":"link"}