Sassafrass by Ntozake Shange
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A lyric novel. I've shelved it under poetry although it has many of the qualities of a novella. Published in 1976, it came out at a time when many writers were declare poetry and short story writing dead. And nearly everyone was experimenting with language.

The language is arranged on the page in a format that we usually consider prose. It is also written in heavy dialect more closely associated today with written rap lyrics. Little in the way of punctuation is used, but forward hash-marks appear throughout in the manner usually seen when lyric poetry is rendered in prose within quoted material.

It took me a few pages before I became convinced that I actually enjoyed reading the book, but I knuckled down and came around.

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