Windows to the Soulful

So what did she make of those smile-free presidential eyes?

"Steely. I would say steely."

Which is a good thing, she thinks, given these "interesting times."

Interesting they are. But Morrison's new book evokes an America at least as fascinating as today's. Set in the late 17th century -- before race-based enslavement became such a central American institution -- it serves as a thought-provoking bookend to the era we are entering.

" 'A Mercy' was sort of pre-racial to me," Morrison explains. And though she's not ready to call the present day post-racial, it does promise "something else, something different, a new slant on all that."

A Toni Morrison novel usually begins as a question in the author's mind. What was it with this book?

"How might it feel," comes the prompt reply, "to be a pitch-black slave girl in a time when slavery was not associated with racism? How's that?"

The notion of a bound population -- whether called serfs, peasants or something else -- used to be commonplace, Morrison says. Yes, there were African slaves in North America in 1690, but the continent also was filled with white indentured servants who'd signed up for years of bondage in return for transportation and the basic necessities. What's more, in the days before laws explicitly divided the races, "indentured servants and black slaves and free whites and free black people worked on those plantations together."

What came next, after she had her central question?

"I get the narrative and the ending. I have to know where I'm going. I don't always know how to get there."

And how did this particular narrative start?

"Well, I have this needy girl. She's going to go on a journey. By herself. Usually, guys go on journeys in narratives and the women stay home.