Gorilla, My Love (1972) by Toni Cade Bombara

Pioneering African American author and scholar Toni Cade Bombara

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Gorilla, My Love (1972)

by Toni Cade Bombara

Bedford-Stuyvesant,  New York

New York: 64/105

Brooklyn/Queens/Long Island/Staten Island: 2/28

   I had to Google Bedford-Stuyvesant to learn its proper Borough(Brooklyn). Bombara was a pioneer in the 1960's "Black Arts Movement" and Gorilla, My Love is her pioneering work of short-stories about working-class African American men, women and children living in Brooklyn.   The stories of Gorilla, My Love are interesting from a literary perspective because almost all of the narration is done in first person and some of the stories are done stream-of-consciousness style.  Bombara utilizes the dialect of the place and time and doesn't clean up grammar to some "standard" English criteria.  

  Unfortunately, combining first person narration with sixteen different narrators requires an intellectual investment beyond what you would expect from a shortish book stories (192 pages).  It's ok though, because Gorilla, My Love is a canon level title on the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America, worth reading solely on its literary merit and trailblazer status.  You could make an argument that Gorilla, My Love belongs on the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list, perhaps subbing for a Toni Morrison novel (there are several on the 1,001 Books list).   If I saw a copy in a used book store I would probably buy it so I could read the stories again.