The only short story Nobel laureate Morrison ever wrote, "Recitatif" concerns Twyla and Roberta, friends in childhood, who lost touch as adults but keep encountering each other at places like a grocery store, a diner, and a protest march. One is white, one is black, but readers don't know which is which, Morrison having aimed to craft "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial." Bearing an introduction by Zadie Smith, this is the story's first-time appearance as a stand-alone. When Verdelle published the Good Negress in 1995, she won early praise from Morrison. The novel went on to claim the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award and PEN/Faulkner finalist honors, but Verdelle's next novel--a Western featuring Black characters--has languished. Nevertheless, the novel led to a friendship with Morrison, detailed here along with Verdelle's early struggles to write and thoughts on what it means to be considered a writer with promise, still struggling. Originally scheduled for September 2021.

"Recitatif" is Morrison's sole short story. Originally published in an anthology in 1983, it resurfaced in Glory Edim's On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library (2021), and now stands resoundingly on its own. As with all the Nobel laureate's work, "Recitatif" is endlessly ponderable. The title is French for recitative--"a rhythmically free vocal style that imitates the natural inflections of speech," and a key to Morrison's shrewdly precise dialogue. The story begins when two abandoned eight-year-old girls, Twlya and Roberta, meet in a shelter. One is white, one is Black; but we're left guessing about their racial identities, an exercise that reveals just how thoroughly programmed our racial perceptions are. In her substantial and enlightening introduction, Zadie Smith quotes Morrison, whom she describes as "the great master of American complexity," explaining that this tale is "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes." Class is also a sharp divide, especially when Twyla and Roberta reconnect as mothers living very different lives in a gentrifying Hudson River town and vehemently at odds over school busing. This is a profound and foundation-rocking conundrum of a -story.

Originally published in 1983, this stunning work from Nobel laureate Morrison (God Help the Child) follows two women who share a tenuous bond after meeting at an orphanage at eight in the 1950s. As Zadie Smith notes in an illuminating introduction, Morrison (1931--2019) chose not to reveal the race of either character, just that one is Black and one is white. Twyla and Roberta connect over a shared sense of rejection after their single mothers were unable to take care of them. Morrison then jumps forward to the late '60s with Twyla as a young woman working at a Howard Johnson's near Kingston, N.Y., where Roberta comes in with a musician boyfriend who supposedly has an "appointment" with Jimi Hendrix. During their awkward exchange, she mocks Twyla for not knowing who Hendrix is. Twelve years later, Twyla is married and living in segregated Newburgh, where she again sees Roberta while shopping at an upscale grocery store. Roberta now lives across the river in fancy Annandale, and she insists Twyla join her for coffee, then brings up a violent incident from the orphanage. Eventually, she accuses Twyla of committing an act of racial violence. The author's experiment pays off brilliantly, forcing the reader to consider racial stereotypes while also providing an indelible story. The gravitas and unparalleled skill found in Morrison's best-known work is on full display in this compact powerhouse. (Feb.)