
CLOSE-UP: HELD STILL
AFTER EIGHTEEN YEARS, Sethe and Paul D, characters in Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved, are reunited in a house that is haunted by the ghost of Sethe’s infant child. The two of them had been enslaved on a plantation they call Sweet Home, the sort of ironic name that plagued those years. (My great-great-great grandfather, born enslaved in 1836, was named Pleasant.) Paul D has been wandering since he ran away, while Sethe, in the wake of emancipation, has found a home for herself and her only surviving daughter, Denver, though the ghost keeps them isolated. Sethe has invited Paul D, who was