Daniel: Most communities fall apart when a villain appears. But what if a person considered pure evil was the only thing holding her community together? What if her death was the worst thing that could happen to them? Sophia: That’s a wild thought. It’s like saying a body needs a fever to stay healthy. It feels completely backward. You’re saying that sometimes, a community’s greatest strength comes from having a common enemy? Daniel: In some strange, unsettling way, yes. That's the paradox at the heart of Toni Morrison's incredible 1973 novel, Sula. Sophia: Ah, Toni Morrison. And she was writing this at the height of the Civil Rights and Black Arts movements. She famously said she wanted to write about female friendship because it was a topic fiction rarely took seriously. It was even nominated for a National Book Award, which shows how it hit a nerve right away. Daniel: Exactly. It’s a book that is still widely acclaimed and debated today for its unflinching look at morality. And Morrison throws us into a world that is completely off-kilter from the very first page, a world built on a joke. Sophia: A joke? What do you mean? Daniel: The Black neighborhood where the story is set is called "The Bottom." But it's not in a valley; it's up in the hills. The name comes from a cruel trick a white farmer played on his slave, promising him "bottom land" if he did some difficult chores. The slave, thinking he was getting fertile valley soil, got the rocky, useless hills instead. The community embraced the name as a kind of bitter irony. Sophia: Wow. So the very foundation of their home is a lie, a piece of racist deception. That sets a pretty bleak stage. Daniel: It does. It’s a community forged in hardship, and it has its own strange rules for survival. And Morrison introduces us to those rules through one of the most unforgettable characters in modern literature: a man named Shadrack.

Daniel: Shadrack is a World War I veteran who returns to the town of Medallion, Ohio, completely shattered by what he’s seen. In one scene, he's running across a battlefield and sees the soldier next to him get his head blown off, but the body keeps running for a few steps. Sophia: Oh, man. That’s an image you can’t unsee. The trauma from that would be unimaginable. Daniel: It breaks him. He's terrified of the unexpected, of death leaping out at any moment. So, to control it, he invents a holiday. He calls it "National Suicide Day." Sophia: Hold on. A holiday for suicide? How does that even work? Daniel: Every year on January 3rd, he walks through The Bottom ringing a cowbell and carrying a hangman's rope, announcing that this is the one day of the year people are given the opportunity to kill themselves or each other. His logic is that if you get all the dying out of the way on one designated day, you can live the other 364 days free from fear. Sophia: That is the most brilliantly insane coping mechanism I have ever heard of. So this is the town's 'normal'? A yearly parade celebrating suicide? Daniel: At first, they’re terrified of him. But over the years, it just becomes part of the town's rhythm. They absorb his madness. They say things like, "I'll see you on National Suicide Day." It shows you how this community normalizes the abnormal to survive. And Shadrack is just the beginning. The real center of this strange world is the Peace household. Sophia: Which, I’m guessing from the name, is anything but peaceful. Daniel: You have no idea. It’s run by the matriarch, Eva Peace, Sula's grandmother. She’s a towering figure with only one leg. The story in the town is that after her husband abandoned her and her three children, she disappeared for 18 months and came back with one leg and a whole lot of money. Sophia: What happened to the leg? Daniel: The rumor is she intentionally let a train run over it to collect the insurance money. Sophia: Wait, she mutilated herself to provide for her kids? That's... an extreme form of maternal sacrifice. Daniel: Exactly. And that act defines her entire philosophy. For Eva, love isn't about hugs and kisses; it's about radical, often violent, acts of survival. Which brings us to the most disturbing thing she does. Her son, Plum, comes back from the war a heroin addict. He's a ghost of himself, just wasting away. Sophia: That’s heartbreaking. So she tries to help him? Daniel: In her own way. One night, she goes into his room, cradles him like a baby, and then douses him in kerosene and lights him on fire. Sophia: What? No. How can that possibly be framed as an act of love? That's horrifying. Daniel: It is. But when she’s confronted about it years later, her explanation is chillingly logical, in her own mind. She says Plum was trying to crawl back inside her, to return to the womb. He wanted to be a baby again, not a man. She says, "I had to keep him out... I just thought of a way he could die like a man." She saw it as a mercy killing, a way to preserve his dignity. Sophia: A mercy killing by fire. This book is already pushing every boundary of what we consider good and evil. It’s not just blurry; it’s a completely different moral universe. Daniel: That's the genius of Morrison. She forces you to sit with these uncomfortable truths. And it's in this world of violent love and normalized trauma that our two protagonists, Nel and Sula, grow up.

Sophia: Okay, so the adults are living in this world of extreme, violent 'love.' How does that shape the next generation? Let's talk about Nel and Sula. Daniel: They are two sides of the same coin. Nel Wright grows up in a house of oppressive neatness and order. Her mother, Helene, is obsessed with propriety and social standing. Nel is quiet, watchful, and yearns for something more. Sophia: And Sula Peace grows up in Eva’s chaotic house, which you described as "woolly." Daniel: Exactly. Sula's home is full of boarders, constant cooking, and a mother, Hannah, who sleeps with men casually and without shame. There are no rules. So Nel, who dreads order, finds freedom in Sula's chaos. And Sula, surrounded by disorder, finds a strange peace in the stillness of Nel's house. Sophia: They complete each other. It’s a classic story of opposites attract, but it sounds much more intense than that. Daniel: It is. Morrison writes that they weren't two friends, they were two parts of a single self. They create their own world, a fortress of two against the judgment of the community and the dangers of the world. But a crack forms in that fortress one summer day, in an event that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Sophia: This feels like it's going to be bad. Daniel: They're down by the river, just being kids, and they're playing with a little boy named Chicken Little. Sula, in a moment of playful abandon, starts swinging him around by his hands. Sophia: Oh no. Daniel: She swings him higher and higher, and Nel is watching. Just watching. And then, he slips. He flies out of Sula's hands, sails through the air, and lands in the river with a small splash. And he doesn't come back up. Sophia: He drowns. Just like that. An accident. Daniel: An accident. Sula is horrified, but Nel is strangely calm. She’s the practical one, checking to see if anyone saw. They form a pact of silence. But the question of responsibility hangs over them forever. Sophia: But who was really responsible? It was an accident, but Eva, the grandmother, later accuses Nel of not just watching, but enjoying it. She says, "You was watchin'... Just as calm as could be." Was there a darkness in Nel, too? Daniel: That’s the terrifying question Morrison leaves open. Sula was the one who acted, but Nel watched. Was her stillness a sign of maturity, or was it a quiet, thrilling fascination? It suggests that the "good" girl, Nel, might have the same capacity for darkness as the "wild" girl, Sula. They are both complicit. Sophia: And that shared secret, that shared guilt, becomes the glue holding them together. Daniel: For a time. It’s the deepest, darkest part of their bond. And it holds them together until adulthood, when Sula commits a betrayal so profound that even their shared history can't withstand it.

Daniel: After high school, Sula leaves The Bottom for ten years. She goes to college, travels, lives a life of complete freedom. Nel stays, marries a man named Jude, and settles into the conventional life of a wife and mother. When Sula returns, their friendship picks up right where it left off. Nel says Sula's return was "like getting the use of an eye back." Sophia: It sounds like a beautiful reunion. But I have a feeling it doesn't last. Daniel: It doesn't. Because a short time later, Nel walks in on Sula and her husband, Jude, together. Sophia: Oh. That’s the ultimate betrayal. Not just of the marriage, but of that sacred friendship. Daniel: Jude leaves, and the friendship shatters. From that moment on, the community, which was already suspicious of Sula's worldliness and her "evil" ways—like putting her grandmother in a home—now has proof. She becomes a pariah. A witch. Sophia: She becomes the town villain. Daniel: Yes, but here’s the paradox that you hinted at earlier. Because Sula is there, a tangible, living embodiment of "evil," the rest of the community suddenly becomes better. Morrison writes that women who were careless with their children now watch them vigilantly. Wives who were indifferent to their husbands become more loving. They define their own goodness by its opposition to Sula's "evil." Sophia: So she's like the town's moral compass, but in reverse. They navigate by steering as far away from her as possible. She’s their scapegoat. Her presence gives them purpose. Which makes the ending so much more devastating. Daniel: Exactly. Sula eventually gets sick and dies, alone and despised. And after she's gone, the community loses its focal point for hatred. The goodness she inadvertently created starts to fray. The petty arguments and resentments come back. They are adrift. Sophia: And this leads to the tunnel disaster. Daniel: It does. That winter is brutal, and the town is full of despair. The tunnel they were promised would bring jobs is still unfinished. On the first National Suicide Day after Sula's death, the townspeople follow Shadrack on his parade. But this time, it's not a joke. It’s a march of desperation. They swarm the tunnel, trying to tear it down, to destroy the symbol of their broken dreams. Sophia: And it collapses. Daniel: It collapses. A flood of mud and ice buries many of them. The very thing they hoped would save them ends up being their tomb. Sophia: Wow. So without their 'evil' Sula to blame, their despair turns inward and destroys them. The very thing they thought was a curse was actually a strange kind of blessing. That is an absolutely brutal and brilliant idea.

Daniel: It really is. I think Sula fundamentally challenges us to look at the people we label "evil" or "other" and ask what purpose they serve for us. Sula's freedom was dangerous, yes. She lived without regard for convention, and it caused immense pain. But it was also fiercely authentic, and the community, built on repression and conformity, simply couldn't handle it. Sophia: It makes you question the very nature of "goodness." The town's goodness was reactive, defined only by what it wasn't. It wasn't real. Sula, for all her flaws, was real. She owned her loneliness, her choices. In one of their last conversations, Nel tells her she can't just live any way she wants, and Sula says, "I know. But it's my life. I'm the one who has to live it." Daniel: And Nel doesn't understand that until the very end of the book, decades later. She visits Sula's grave, and she's still thinking about her husband, Jude, and the pain of his leaving. But then it hits her. She starts crying, a "howl" that's been trapped inside for years. Sophia: What does she realize? Daniel: She realizes the grief wasn't for Jude. She says, "All that time, all that time, I thought I was missing Jude." And then she whispers, "We was girls together." She finally understands that the great loss of her life wasn't her husband; it was her friend. It was the other half of her soul. Sophia: That gives me chills. It’s a devastating recognition of what truly mattered. It makes you wonder, who are the 'Sulas' in our own lives? The people we define ourselves against, the friendships that shape us in ways we don't understand until it's too late? Daniel: A profound and unsettling question. And that's the power of Toni Morrison. She doesn't give you easy answers, just deeper, more resonant questions. Sophia: I encourage everyone to read this book. It's short, but it's dense with life and pain and beauty. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this complex friendship and the nature of good and evil. Join the conversation with the Aibrary community. Daniel: This is Aibrary, signing off.