Grace

The New York Times

In Elizabeth Nunez's latest novel, conflicts arise in apparently tranquil and satisfying lives. Justin Peters, a black Trinidadian with a Harvard Ph.D., has chosen to teach at a small public college in Brooklyn; though he dislikes the extreme Afrocentrism of certain of his colleagues, he manages to survive through some deft maneuvering between the canons. His wife loves him, their 4-year-old daughter, Giselle, and her work at a primary school, but something isn't right. She used to write poems before they met, but now Justin sees her as mired in self-help books and talk shows. ''Are you living exactly where you want to be, Sally?'' he asks. ''Are you doing exactly what you want to do?'' Her inexplicable coldness makes him think she plans to leave him, perhaps for her friend Anna. Meanwhile, his prize student tries to kill himself after discovering that his girlfriend has been seduced by someone he describes as a ''lesbo.'' An important theme in Grace is the defense of the Western classics; diversity, Justin believes, must cast a wider net. He plans to compare Toni Morrison's Sethe, who killed her daughter, to Euripides' Medea, whose motives for killing her children are at least as tangled. After much debate, the curriculum committee approves this line of reasoning. Sally and Justin eventually come to an understanding as well, which might be more believable if he sounded less like a stage parent and more like a friend. — William Ferguson

Publishers Weekly

Nunez's latest (after Discretion) is a perceptive and moving tale of an African-American middle-class marriage struggling to right itself amid tremors of self-discovery. Both Justin Peters, a professor of literature at a college in Brooklyn, and his wife, Sally, a primary school teacher, have sacrificed a great deal in making their way in white America. Justin, a Trinidadian Harvard graduate, adheres fiercely to the "Dead White Men" of the classical canon, despite his college's party line of Afrocentricity. Sally, whose father was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, abandoned her ambitions to be a poet after the violent death of her former lover. Yet their comfortable life with their four-year-old daughter, Giselle, is not enough for Sally, who informs Justin that she needs "space" and moves in with her best friend. Bewildered by and critical of what he sees as Sally's feminist platitudes, Justin suspects lesbianism, seeing a parallel with his own troubled student, Mark, who discovers that his girlfriend is sleeping with her white female professor. Sally's inability to articulate what she lacks feeds Justin's feelings of helplessness, underscored by a colleague's accusations of Uncle Tomism. In exquisitely tuned prose, Nunez depicts a man's lonely attempt to save his marriage while honoring his roots. Adopting Justin's sage, reasoned point of view tempered by the Great Books he teaches, Nunez allows the narrative to unfold with understated elegance. Although Sally's existential struggle often seems unfocused and simplistic, Justin must learn to reacquaint himself with the woman he loves. As in most of life, there is no shattering epiphany here but, rather, a subtly shaded landscape, at once familiar and pitted with hidden challenges. Agent, Ivy Fischer Stone. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

The title of this lyrical novel could not be more fitting. Nunez (Bruised Hibiscus) is one of the most graceful novelists in recent memory. Her descriptions-of Brooklyn apartments, teaching in a small college, the African American character and its subtleties, aging, marriage, the life of a four-year-old, life in Jamaica, and immigration to the United States-seem right on target. Very little "happens" here and yet at least four lives are drastically changed by the end. The action is moderated, the pace slow, which makes many audiobooks difficult to listen to, but the lush settings here render it as absorbing as listening to a fine concerto. Half a dozen conclusions seem predictable, yet Nunez opts for none of them. Her voice, with a distinct Jamaican accent, at first seems at odds with Sally, her main female character, the tough African American woman raised in Harlem, but after a moment it meshes with Justin's voice, creating a bond between husband and wife that enhances the experience of the recording. Highly recommended for all libraries.-Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Love grows cold during a Brooklyn winter, in an equally chilly tale from Nunez. College professor Justin Peters, Trinidian-born, suspects his wife Sally is cheating on him-or will be as soon as she gets a chance, though he has nothing to go on besides Sally's evident unhappiness. They live well enough, with their young daughter Giselle, yet Sally, who grew up in Harlem, longs for the freedom of her youth, when she was a brilliant student at Hunter High School in Manhattan and then at Howard University, writing passionate poetry, expected to do great things. Now that life has dwindled down to teaching elementary school and caring for Giselle. Sally frets that she has nothing useful to do. Her life seems meaningless, especially compared to that of her father, a courageous doctor murdered by a racist mob down south. Her brother Tony, then seven, witnessed the killing and grew up a drug addict. Her mother ended up in a mental institution And sometimes Sally isn't sure she herself is all that together. Justin doesn't quite understand, but he's beset with midlife worries of his own. What if Sally does leave him? He vows silently that he'll never let her take their daughter, though his Trinidadian mother has told him that a child needs a mother more than a father. He still feels like a black man in a white man's world, despite his Harvard education and impeccable reputation in the academic community. He does his damnedest to convey his own passion for classic European literature to a multicultural student body that thinks of these authors as Old Dead White Men with nothing to say. A departmental scandal is brewing: a hard-line feminist professor's clandestine affair with a female student. Thisonly adds to Justin's concern: Perhaps Sally will fall in love with a woman, not a man. Long talks follow; nothing much changes. Muted, somewhat anemic, minus the florid excesses of Nunez's previous four (Discretion, 2001, etc.).