Toni Morrison is a behemoth of American literature. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and many more, Morrison is known for her raw insights into the lasting legacy of slavery and into race relations (past and present) in the United States.

Her newest book, Mouth Full of Blood: Essays, Speeches, Meditations, contains output spanning from 1976 to 2013. It is a collection which, in my opinion, unfortunately serves little purpose and creates nothing new for modern public discourse or private thought.

One of my main issues with this collection is the age of the writings: the average year of the 50-odd pieces is 1996, and this feels quite obvious to the reader from the get-go. A lecture from 1996 which touches on violence in American society, guns, and militarism feels absurd to read now, given that since then we have watched unending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the incredible frequency of mass shootings we now only need a name to recognise: Columbine, Parkland, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Pulse, and countless more. Even the fact that the most recent piece is dated 2013 is telling, and begs the question, why publish this collection now? I have no answer, or at least none not (cynically) financially motivated.

Morrison’s language in this book, as it is in all of her works, is thick with metaphor and imagery, and can often even be agrammatical. While acknowledging that this is her unique style, I still find it largely cumbersome and difficult to decipher and would argue it would be so for the majority of readers.

Mouth Full of Blood is also a reminder that even great authors self-plagiarise, with Morrison recycling phrases, paragraphs and, at one point, several pages verbatim in different speeches. While this act is entirely understandable, what is less clear is the necessity of including the many iterations of the same argument multiple times in the same book. It would surely be more effective to consolidate them and present them as one coherent text.

While I deeply respect the incredible insight Toni Morrison brings and the impact she has had over her remarkable career, I’m sorry to say I find Mouth Full of Blood completely skippable.

Reviewed by Gabriella Bate