Set after the Great Depression, Morrison’s heartbreaking debut explores beauty and finds joy where there really should be none

This week, amazingly, I read a book. Just the one, though – let’s not get excited. I suspect I was only able to do so because I wasn’t reading for pleasure, but because I’ve been asked to write a foreword for it. The book I read was The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, a novel about a young, dark-skinned girl growing up in the US after the Great Depression who believes herself to be ugly; she wishes for blue eyes in the hope that they will make her beautiful. I had started to read it a few years ago, but was so overwhelmed that I had to put it down. This time, I knew, contractually, that I was going to tackle it head on.

Usually I blitz through a book. But it’s Toni isn’t it, so you’ve got to gear yourself up for heartbreak, some trauma, and also to learn some things about yourself, and human nature, that you’d rather not be faced with. If she did one thing impeccably, it was holding a mirror up to society and saying: “Look at how we live. Are you proud of that?” And the answer cannot always be yes.