810. The Temple of the Familiar

The Temple of the Familiar
Alice Walker
1989
Around 420 pages

I love novelists that create their own multiverse. Walker features the leads of The Color Purple as background characters, which is a nice touch.

This is a more ambitious narrative than her previous work. We get the interwoven stories of Arveyda, a musician in search of his past; Carlotta, his wife who lives in exile; Suwelo, a black professor of American History who realizes that his generation of men have failed women; and Fanny, his ex-wife about to meet her father for the first time.

Walker is a beautiful writer, although I have to admit this leaned more into the stream of consciousness side of things that I tend to dislike. I actually enjoyed her previous work more, which focused on fewer characters and wasn't so scattered. And once again, we get supremely unlikable characters, but that's just her style.

So worth reading but not her masterpiece.

RATING: ***--

Interesting Facts:

Walker has published 17 novels.

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