Podcast Summary: "Don't Make a Saint Out of Toni Morrison"

Cannonball with Wesley Morris – The New York Times
Episode Date: February 26, 2026

Overview of the Episode

In this episode of Cannonball, Wesley Morris is joined by writer and critic Parul Sehgal and editor Sasha Weiss to deeply examine the literary legacy of Toni Morrison. The conversation, held on the day after what would have been Morrison's 95th birthday, investigates Morrison's transformative impact on American literature, the risks of her posthumous canonization, and the complexities embedded in her work. With Morrison’s novels being reissued and her influence under renewed discussion, the panel questions what is lost when Morrison is turned into a near-sacred figure rather than being engaged with on human, complicated terms.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Introductions to Toni Morrison

The Importance of First Encounters & Language

• All three panelists recall their early, sometimes uneasy introductions to Morrison’s novels—through book covers, second-hand family stories, and school reading lists.
• Parul Sehgal vividly remembers hiding the cover of The Bluest Eye from classmates and herself, sensing its forbidden knowledge (05:00).
  • Notable quote:
    “It felt like a secret, and I didn't want my white classmates to know. So I used to, in the library, turn the book around... I just got so rattled. I took the cover off…” – Parul Sehgal [05:54]
• Wesley Morris describes being haunted and seduced by the imagery and difficulty of Beloved.
  • Compares Morrison’s difficulty to that of Faulkner and Joyce, but through the prism of African American experience and emotion (03:50).
  • Notable quote:
    “That’s the thing about Toni Morrison. Nobody’s ready. She writes big and dark and bold, humorously about Black Americans and their lives, their inner lives. You just have to be willing.” – Wesley Morris [03:59]

2. Morrison’s Literary Risks and Stylistic Significance

Confronting the Reader; The Power and Danger of Language

• Morrison’s writing style—her “dangerous” sentences and emotional depth—makes her both magnetic and, at times, frightening to her readers.
• Detailed examinations of the opening sentences in works like Jazz and Paradise:
  • “They shot the white girl first.” [08:05]
• Sasha Weiss admits her most profound Morrison experience was realizing what was possible with language:
  • Notable quote:
    “…this immediate recognition that something new is going on with language.” [08:19]

3. The Problem of Canonization — Is Morrison Becoming 'Untouchable'?

Risks of Sanctification and the Loss of Critical Engagement

• Sehgal expresses discomfort at the increasing tendency to canonize Morrison as beyond critique, worrying this “flattens her” and “puts her out of reach” (09:52-11:52).
  • Notable quote:
    “What always makes me a little bit nervous is when somebody is canonized and sanctified and somehow becomes flattened in the process… We cannot work with the ideas… that bedeviled even her.” – Parul Sehgal [10:02]
• Current reissues and public writing often focus on readers’ personal relationships with Morrison rather than the fierce originality and “danger” of her work.
  • Sehgal notes Morrison’s own insistence on critical engagement:
    “If we want better books, we need better critics.” [12:42]

4. The “Dangerous” Passages: Reading Morrison Aloud

Touching Taboo and Thinking the Unthinkable

• The panel reads aloud challenging passages from Tar Baby, The Bluest Eye, and Sula, highlighting how Morrison fearlessly explores sexual violence, incest, communal guilt, and unspeakable taboo.
  • Tar Baby passage (Wesley reads, [16:18–18:07]):
    “He had jangled something in her that was so repulsive, so awful. And he had managed to make her feel that the thing that repelled her was not in him but in her...”
    • Sasha Weiss: “But it’s so crazy to imagine her above us. She’s in us. She’s a street.” [18:14]
  • The Bluest Eye passage (Parul reads, [20:10–22:24]):
    “His revulsion was a reaction to her young, helpless, hopeless presence... He wanted to break her neck. But tenderly.”
  • Sula passage (Sasha reads, [24:06–28:43]):
    Eva, a mother, explains why she killed her son—her “doubled” voice revealing maternal ambivalence and horror.
    • Key reflection: “There is a suggestion of some kind of incestuous desire… the ambivalence. …I want to mother him. I want to be devoured, but I also can’t.” – Sasha Weiss [27:46]

5. Morrison on Black Masculinity and Family

Critiques of Morrison's Portrayal of Black Men; The Complexity of Brokenness and Care

• Discussion around Stanley Crouch’s criticism that Morrison sidelines Black men in works like Beloved, countered by readings that show her deep inquiry into their suffering, arrested development, and complicated relationships with Black women and their own humanity (29:52–35:49).
  • Notable quote:
    “There’s so many people in her novels who are like walking, living abortions. People who weren’t supposed to be, who even in being aren’t.” – Wesley Morris [32:59]
  • Morrison’s work indicts not just systems but also mothers, families, and communities for their roles.

6. Memory, Trauma, and the Collective

Morrison’s Political Understanding of Memory; The Communal Act of Reading

• Morrison centers memory as a profoundly political and collective act, building her narratives around what cannot (or will not) be remembered by a single mind (36:15–38:43).
  • “One mind can’t hold it. But a few minds together might.” – Parul Sehgal [37:25]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Nobody’s ready. She writes big and dark and bold…” – Wesley Morris [03:59]
• “You can do that. You can start a book like this.” – Wesley Morris [08:04]
• “In this, the reader’s need… is starting to supplant her achievement.” – Parul Sehgal [12:44]
• “How does she know these things about people, right?” – Parul Sehgal [18:53]
• “There’s a way that she can show you how this feeling of helplessness moves into a place of absolute maternal entitlement to take that life.” – Parul Sehgal [29:27]
• “It’s always both. … For somebody to feel big, someone else has to feel small.” – Parul Sehgal [35:49]
• “Thinking the unthinkable”—Parul Sehgal on Morrison’s enduring challenge to herself and her readers [35:49–36:15]
• “Some of this is private work. … You’re not selling tickets to watch somebody.” – Wesley Morris [50:26]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:50–04:53] – Wesley recounts his introduction to Beloved
• [05:54–06:33] – Parul describes hiding her copy of The Bluest Eye
• [08:05] – Famous opening lines from Morrison’s novels discussed
• [09:37–11:52] – The risks of sanctifying Morrison’s legacy
• [16:18–18:07] – “Ruthless” sex and revulsion passage from Tar Baby read aloud
• [20:10–22:24] – Father’s sexual violence from The Bluest Eye
• [24:06–28:43] – Sasha reads Eva’s disturbing monologue in Sula
• [29:52–35:49] – Discussion of Black masculinity and maternal ambivalence in Morrison’s novels
• [36:15–38:43] – “Thinking the unthinkable” and communal acts of memory

Conclusion: The Danger of Sanctification and the Value of Wrestling with Morrison

• The episode concludes with all three cautioning against making Morrison “untouchable.” Her true power lies in her capacity to disturb, to provoke thought, and to demand direct engagement with the most difficult parts of human experience. Turning her into a saint may protect her image, but it places her—and the necessary discomfort of her work—out of reach.
• Sasha Weiss best encapsulates the closing ethos:
  “I feel like we’re doing the right thing here, which is actually reading her, but also reading her communally and doing the kind of communal act of remembering that she calls for.” [49:44]

Final Thoughts

Wesley, Parul, and Sasha stress the importance of continuing to wrestle with Morrison’s legacy in direct, messy, communal ways—honoring her audacity rather than sanitizing it. Morrison’s books, they agree, are not sacred relics, but living works that demand honest, unsparing engagement.

For listeners:
This episode is a masterclass both in reading Morrison and in thinking critically about what we do with literary legacy. The discussion brims with insight, tender anecdotes, and bracing honesty—making Morrison’s work, and the act of engaging with it, feel alive, urgent, and necessary.