Minority report …

… Lionel Shriver: Toni Morrison picked the wrong subject in God Help the Child. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

To the degree that Morrison is writing about the larger problem of how adults continually rehearse and react to the scars of childhood, how they “cling to a sad little story of hurt and sorrow – some long-ago trouble and pain life dumped on their pure and innocent selves”, the theme is

underexplored.

Lionel was one of my favorite reviewers — and one of my favorite people — when I was book editor. This is a characteristically thoughtful review.