In the threshold between awake and sleeping, a woman in a yellow dress strolls the aisles of a grocery store.

Continuing on tour for ON MORRISON, Namwali Serpell travels to Philadelphia to talk with writer Angela Flournoy about a scene from TAR BABY. Speaking at the Free Library, they trace the novel's invocation of myths and masks, Morrison's paradoxical presentation of stereotypes, and the surreal, slippery images that make the scene in the grocery store stick.

Here is the passage Angela reads from Morrison's TAR BABY:

"The vision itself was a woman much too tall. Under her long canary yellow dress Jadine knew there was too much hip, too much bust. The agency would laugh her out of the lobby, so why was she and everybody else in the store transfixed? The height? The skin like tar against the canary yellow dress? The woman walked down the aisle as though her many-­colored sandals were pressing gold tracks on the floor. Two upside-­down V's were scored into each of her cheeks, her hair was wrapped in a gelée as yellow as her dress…. The woman leaned into the dairy section and opened a carton from which she selected three eggs. Then she put her right elbow into the palm of her left hand and held the eggs aloft between earlobe and shoulder. She looked up then and they saw something in her eyes so powerful it had burnt away the eyelashes.

….the woman reached into the pocket of her yellow dress and put a ten-louis piece on the counter and walked away, away, gold tracking the floor and leaving them all behind....  

Jadine followed her profile, then her back as she passed the store window—followed her all the way to the edge of the world where the plate glass stopped. And there, just there—a moment before the cataclysm when all loveliness and life and breath in the world was about to disappear—the woman turned her head sharply around to the left and looked right at Jadine. Turned those eyes too beautiful for eyelashes on Jadine and, with a small parting of her lips, shot an arrow of saliva between her teeth down to the pavement and the hearts below."

You can find an abridged transcript and additional show notes here at Literary Hub.

You can buy Namwali Serpell's ON MORRISON at this link and anywhere books are sold.

PASSAGES: On Morrison is a Random House production, hosted by Namwali Serpell. The podcast was created and produced by Sara McCrea. Sound design and technical direction by John DeLore. Campaign strategy and development, media partnerships by Carrie Neill. Publicity and tour coordination by Peter Dyer.