Positive obsession The life and times of Octavia E. Butler

Cultural critic Morris (Close Kin and Distant Relatives) examines in this unique biography the "personal struggles, historical context, and creative obsessions" behind the work of Octavia Butler (1947--2006). Morris notes that Butler's prolific oeuvre invites readers to imagine the future in a way that prioritizes seeking truth and rejecting tyranny, making use of "positive obsession," a term Butler coined to describe her desire to write. Morris demonstrates how Butler spoke to America's horrors, noting that her novels "pay close attention to the workings of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism to spin a horrifying near future." In 1993's Parable of the Sower, set in 2024, Butler reflected on Reagan's presidential run and in doing so, foresaw Donald Trump's campaign pledge to "make America great again." As an "ardent surveyor of history," Butler shed light on the antebellum South in her 1979 novel Kindred, which was inspired by a classmate of Butler's who believed their enslaved ancestors to be cowards. Morris powerfully frames Butler's work and career through her politics and personal struggles, including the way poverty "threatened to crush her spirit." The result is a moving study of the life and creative pursuits of a literary pioneer. Agent: Tanya McKinnon and Carol Taylor, McKinnon Literary. (Aug.)

A determined writer. Drawing on correspondence, interviews, unpublished manuscripts, and archival material, queer Black feminist scholar Morris offers a sensitive examination of pioneering Black science-fiction writer Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006), whose many honors include a MacArthur Fellowship. As a child growing up in Southern California, Butler was a voracious reader of science fiction and comic books, aspiring, from an early age, to be a writer. The genre of science fiction and fantasy, though, was dominated by white males, and she was frustrated in placing her stories. Nevertheless, she persisted, working at low-wage temp jobs so she would have time for writing. Although her finances were precarious--once she had to pawn her typewriter--"she was fueled," Morris sees, "by her positive obsession to write probing, harrowing tales of humanity's hubris and hope." At classes sponsored by the Writers Guild of America, she met the irascible science fiction writer Harlan Ellison, who encouraged her to attend the prestigious six-week Clarion writers' workshop, where he was teaching in 1970. Although she sold two stories during that period, for the next five years, she placed nothing--until, in 1976, she finally succeeded in publishing the first book of her five-novel Patternist saga, about a group of telepathic humans who change the course of humanity. Morris situates Butler's career amid salient historical events and social movements, and she underscores the deep research that fueled Butler's imagination, from reading slave narratives in Baltimore archives to studying precolonial West African, Nubian, and Igbo languages and cultures. Butler's fictions--which Morris reads perceptively--convey cautionary tales warning against fascism, gender-based violence, and the consequences of global warming. All, Morris asserts, are driven by the question: What does it mean to be human? A warm tribute to a pathbreaker. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.