In Toni Morrison's powerful 1977 novel, Milkman Dead hears a strange story: his father and his aunt Pilate witnessed their father's murder, and Pilate has carried his bones around with her for 20 years. Milkman travels south to find that this grandfather (who fled slavery and escaped, creating a myth of flight) has been immortalized in folktales and songs. He and Pilate bury his bones at last; Pilate is killed; and Milkman is made free and powerful by his newfound connection to his ancestors. Winner of the 1978 National Book Critics Award.

"A long story...and better than good. Toni Morrison has earned attention and praise. Few Americans know, and can say, more than she has in this wise and spacious novel."
-- Reynolds Price

"...'Song of Solomon' moves like a gravely choreographed procession or dance. The cast of characters, though it feels small and intimate, is large...the bones of Morrison's language participate in every scene, every sidelong comment, in creating the paradox of a degree of racial repression that is...both important and negligible for the reader's experience of the book...The world of Morrison's black Americans...is, after all, the actual world--no exotic island."         -- Reynolds Price

This novel takes readers into a magical and richly peopled world which encompasses four generations of African American life.