Losing “Silver Mirrors” in the Suburbs

Grandma Tilson, I’m afraid of hell.

Ain’t nothing to fear, there’s hell on earth.

I mean the real hell where you can go when you die.

You ain’t gotta die to go to the real hell.

No?

Uh uh, you just gotta sell that silver mirror God propped up in your soul.

Sell it to who – the devil?

Naw, just to the highest bidder, child.  The highest bidder.[1]

 

We all have a “silver mirror” inside our hearts that guide us on our journey through life.  It is when we “sell” our “silver mirror” that we lose our self-identity and inner strength.  In the book Linden Hills, readers follow Willie and Lester on a “journey [through the suburb of] Linden Hills” (p. 20).  While on this journey, the two characters interact with several residents of the suburb.  As they do so, both Willie and Lester begin to learn the suffocating power that threatens to “buy” the souls of the people living in Linden Hills.  While reading Linden Hills I discovered how timeless the story is.  Since the time when the first suburbs were formed in America to the current formation of suburbs, they have shaped and affected the lives of the people living within them.  Additionally, as I read through the story and followed Willie and Lester on their journey, I realized the truth behind the words.  It is all too often that people become consumed with the power and prestige, or desolation that is associated with where they live.  Linden Hills, by Gloria Naylor, is one of the best books I have ever read.  This amazing story captured my attention from the first page until the last as I traveled through the suburb of Linden Hills and learned how places can impact the lives of those living within it.  More importantly, I discovered how people can persevere even in the most difficult times in order to preserve the beauty of their souls. 

It is important to understand the suburb of Linden Hills before we can examine the journeys of the characters.  Linden Hills is the place where everyone wants to live.  By living in Linden Hills a person can proudly proclaim that he or she has “made it.”  In fact, “there were other black communities with showcase homes [in America], but somehow making it into Linden Hills meant ‘making it’” (p. 15).  The suburb was founded by Luther Nedeed in 1820 and continued to be shaped and monitored by successive Luther Nedeeds.  What started out as a wooden shack next to a cemetery turned into a dream to bring power to African Americans.  The first Luther Nedeed bought a little wooden clapboard house next to the cemetery of Wayne County in 1820.  Patiently, he waited for his opportunity to create a dream out of the land that sat above him.  He waited and waited until finally, “very slowly- …the face of Wayne County” began to change (p. 5).  As the farmland shifted into towns, Luther Nedeed sought his opportunity to reshape the land forever.  It was this Luther Nedeed’s dream to see the land of Wayne County turn into a place where African Americans could live in equality and without oppression.  Luther Nedeed’s son sought to ensure his father’s dream became a reality.  He too patiently watched the “faces on the hill [change as] the old town became a young city” and moved closer to fulfilling the dream (p. 6).  However, it was not until the next generation of Luther Nedeeds that the dream “[crystallized] into a zoned district of eight circular drives that held some of the finest homes-and eventually the wealthiest black families- in the county” (p. 13).  Finally, the dream had materialized and Linden Hills turned into a place where African Americans could seize the American life of wealth and prosperity.  However, despite all the hard work and dreaming that went into forming the suburb, the glamour and presumed prestige of Linden Hills could not hide the secrets and untold truths that lurked around every corner.  And even though they tried, the residents of Linden Hills could no longer keep their troubles locked inside their picturesque Victorian homes.  Even though Linden Hills was a place of power and prestige for African Americans, the “silver mirror” of the people in the suburb had been sold to the power of greed and imitation.  And in 1985, six days before Christmas, the suburb of Linden Hills would be changed forever.  This is one of the most interesting parts of the book that forced me to think about society today.  Often, what we originally plan to do in life becomes altered as time goes by.  The best of intentions can turn into the worst just by going through a few “wrong turns” in life.  Every time we make decisions we are changing our future, for better or for worse.  The first Luther Nedeed had high aspirations for the suburb of Linden Hills.  Unfortunately, his original plans did not turn out exactly as he had wanted.  So even though Linden Hills did turn into a place that offered a wealthier future for African Americans, it no longer was a place that offered safety and security.  This makes me wonder how many suburbs today mirror the desperation of Linden Hills

Gloria Naylor did a beautiful job of examining the trivialities of American suburbs through the eyes of the book’s characters.  In particular, there are five important characters who intimately witness the revolution of Linden Hills: Willie, Lester, Luther Nedeed, Willa Prescott Nedeed, and Braithwaite.  Willie and Lester lead the story of Linden Hills.  Willie and Lester are two young adult men who share a long, dedicated friendship.  It was “bloody noses [that] had made them friends, but giving sound to the bruised places in their hearts made them brothers” (p. 28).  Both Willie and Lester use poetry as their escape from the trials of the world.  Jobless and in need of money, Lester and Willie decide to find odd jobs to do throughout Linden Hills in order to buy their family Christmas presents; however, what they ended up getting were several life altering experiences.  Lester lives in Linden Hills, while Willie lives in Putney Wayne, the neighborhood outside of Linden Hills.  Lester was born and raised in Linden Hills and now lives with his mother and sister.  While his mother and sister strive to maintain the prestige of living in Linden Hills, Lester despises the way the people of Linden Hills have sold their souls for wealth and power.  Willie lives alone in an apartment in Wayne County.  Most of his days consist of getting drunk and smoking pot with other “young black men” on Wayne Avenue (p. 29).  It is during these times when he “dropped his street language and totally bewildered [the other men] with long recitations in perfect iambic pentameter about the state of American society” (p. 29).  His ability to recite and memorize poetry earned him the reputation of a methodical man in Wayne County, but in Linden Hills he was nothing more than a poor, uneducated delinquent.  Again, I noticed a reflection of society today in this story.  Often, people judge those around them based solely on what they see on the outside of the person instead of appreciating who they are as a person.  Readers soon discover that it is Lester who wants to leave the “grand” suburb of Linden Hills and Willie who wants to get into it.  Throughout the story, something is luring Willie into Linden Hills, and he desperately wants to discover what makes that place so seemingly perfect.  This contrast between Lester and Willie is an important element to the development of the story.  It was during this time that I first began to see how people perceive the space around them differently.  No two people will have the exact same experiences in one place.  Every person connects to a place differently depending on who they are and their individual life experiences.  It is interesting to see how Lester, who gets to live in the beautiful suburb, would rather live somewhere else, and Willie, who is considered an outsider to those in Linden Hills, hopes to one day assimilate into the community.  However, as the story develops, both Lester and Willie learn that the people of Linden Hills are not as happy as they seem to be, and the root of all their problems is Luther Nedeed, the owner of the town.

Luther Nedeed is owner of the Tupelo Realty Corporation, and is the city mortician.  It is Nedeed’s responsibility to carry on the traditions of his father and the past generations of Luther Nedeeds.  Unfortunately, by the time it is Luther Nedeed’s opportunity to take over the dream, it has been misinterpreted and distorted.  Throughout the book, Nedeed struggles with his guilt from failing the dream of his lineage.  However, Luther Nedeed also relishes in the reality that he is a powerful man in a powerful suburb.  As I read this story I began to see how Luther Nedeed concealed secrets about the people living in Linden Hills in order to control and manipulate them.  What is more interesting is how Luther Nedeed can be seen as a representation of the devil who is in a power struggle to buy the souls of the Linden Hills residents.  In particular, Nedeed decides who is allowed to live in the suburb as owner of Linden Hills, and he alone controls the burial and cremation of the suburb’s residents as the mortician.  His authority allows him to manipulate the people to ensure they live how a person in Linden Hills should live.  Ironically, despite his best efforts, Luther Nedeed’s power over his own life slowly starts to slip away.  Reflecting on the time when he chose his wife, Luther Nedeed thought how “he had known when the moment was right to pick the perfect women for Tupelo Drive” (p. 67).  She had to be just right, just like all the other Nedeed wives.  She had to look and act the way a Linden Hills wife should because he had to set an example for the rest of the suburb.  However, Luther Nedeed is eventually disappointed with his choice and is determined to discipline her.  As punishment for her transgressions, Luther Nedeed locks his wife and child in his basement.  Tragically, the cold and hunger are too much for the baby to survive and he dies in the arms of his mother.  It is at this point in the book that readers meet Willa Prescott Nedeed as she struggles between hope and insanity. 

While locked in the basement, Willa Prescott Nedeed is on the verge of losing all hope as she struggles with the torture and pain caused by the burden of knowing the secrets of the Nedeed family that is unseen by the people of Linden Hills.  Not wanting to endure another tragic day, Willa Prescott Nedeed waits to die.  After weeks of being locked in the basement, and while waiting for her life to end, she discovers an old Bible.  To her surprise she notices writings within the pages of the Bible between each of its chapters.  Willa Prescott Nedeed soon realizes that the writings are from a previous Nedeed wife.  Then, she finds a collection of old recipes and a photo album that are also from two other Nedeed wives.  As she reads through the pages in the Bible and recipes, and examines the photographs, Willa Prescott Nedeed notices a continuous pattern that has cursed the previous generations of Nedeed wives.  All three of those women had slowly been erased from the Nedeed home.  They were only needed long enough to give birth to a son, the next generation of Luther Nedeeds, and then they were forced into the shadows.  Unneeded and unloved, the women slowly lost hold of their souls as they dissolved into death.  “But Willa Prescott Nedeed was still alive,” and she was now determined to survive (p. 278).  She realized she had chosen her life and she had allowed it to turn out how it had.  Now, only she could change it.  Willa Prescott Nedeed’s journey to self-discovery is an emotional and dynamic part of the book.  It was difficult to observe how the generations of Luther Nedeeds had harbored so many women in Linden Hills only to ensure their dream could become a reality.  The Nedeeds were so consumed with creating a place of power that they were willing to sacrifice the souls of their wives.  It is hard to imagine a world where people can be so blinded by greed.  Yet, as this story shows, people too often allow the desire for power to overtake their sense of right and wrong.

Braithwaite is an interesting character whom readers do not meet until the end of the book.  Nevertheless, he is an important character that holds the key to the truth behind Linden Hills and the Luther Nedeeds.  Braithwaite is a historian, hired by Luther Nedeed, to trace the history of Linden Hills and all who live in it.  When Willie and Lester meet Braithwaite for the first time they had just witnessed a women commit suicide by jumping into a drained pool.  Confused and heartbroken, Willie and Lester follow Braithwaite into his home as they wait for a taxicab to pick them up.  While waiting, they discover the “works” of Braithwaite.  “Look at this,” Braithwaite explained.  “The work of a lifetime.  It’s one of my eleven volumes about the history of Linden Hills” (p. 261).  Astounded, Lester and Willie can not understand how Braithwaite could spend a lifetime just sitting in his house, looking out his window watching the people of Linden Hills lose their “silver mirrors” to the corruption of Luther Nedeed.  Trying to make them understand, Braithwaite explains how this place could not have been possible without the dreams of the Luther Nedeeds.  It was only through the dedication and hard work of the Luther Nedeeds that “a handful of illiterate and unskilled people [were able to come] here and [prosper]” (p. 260).  And now, Braithwaite explained, all people who live in Linden Hills have the opportunity to have a great home and a great life.  Unconvinced, Lester and Willie argue that it is Luther Nedeed’s fault that so many people in Linden Hills have lost their souls.  It is Nedeed’s fault that the woman jumped into the empty pool because, like the pool, she was empty inside.  It was Luther Nedeed’s fault that Linden Hills was no longer what it was supposed to be.  Instead of being a place of refuge and strength for African Americans, it was a place filled with desolation and emptiness. 

I have only scratched the surface of the story of Linden Hills for the plot is intricate and the character study is comprehensive.  Above all, it is a story that forced me to restructure my thinking about how the construction of places can impact the lives of those within them.  As in Linden Hills, places can have both positive and negative impacts on people depending on their inner strength.  Throughout the story, Luther Nedeed is overcome by the power that he has over the people within the suburb and, unfortunately, uses this power to try and control the lives of everyone living in it.  Luther Nedeed is driven by his desire to own the land and people, and to manipulate the lives of the people in a way that will bring power and prestige to his legacy.  In contrast, Willa Prescott Nedeed was initially heartbroken and spiritually broken by Luther Nedeed’s control and manipulation; but then she realized she could not live her life blaming others and only she could choose to change the direction of her life.  So, even though Linden Hills was initially a place that was painful for Willa Prescott Nedeed to live in, her inner strength gave her the power she needed to overcome the constraint of the suburb.  Linden Hills was a gripping story from beginning to end.  I could not help but create a relationship with the characters as they lived through those six defining days before Christmas.  During those six days, the lives of the characters and the place of Linden Hills were forever changed.  And while the physical place of Linden Hills would remain the same, the core of the suburb endured a reformation that allowed the residents to recapture their souls.  By the end of the book, it is clear that the people of Lindens Hills are ready to take back their “silver mirrors” and begin a new life.