Book review of Toni at Random by Dana A. Williams

Almost everyone knows that Toni Morrison deeply shaped American letters with her evocative novels and her powerful and eloquent literary criticism and speeches. What many don’t know is that she also profoundly influenced American book publishing and literature in her years as an editor at Random House from 1967 to 1977. Dana A. Williams provides a striking portrait of Morrison’s editorial tenure in her affectionate and vibrant biography, Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship.

Drawing on deep archival research and interviews with the Nobel Prize winner before her death in 2019, Williams deftly traces Morrison’s life from her early days in Lorain, Ohio, and her college years at Howard to her graduate work at Cornell. Even as a young child, Morrison was entranced by the power of language. While working on her graduate thesis on Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner, she explored the ways that fiction could tell stories that history could not. After her divorce, and with two young children in tow, she followed her attraction to language into editing and publishing, working first in a textbook division of Random House before becoming a trade editor at the company. 

While Morrison could be demanding and tough on her authors, she collaborated with them closely. The result was usually a book that reflected the author’s individuality and that influenced conversations about various cultural issues. During her time at Random House, the authors Morrison edited and published included Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Gayl Jones, Muhammad Ali and Leon Forrest. In 1974, she edited and published The Black Book, an anthology of essays, photos and documents of Black life from slavery to the 1920s, to great critical attention. In Toni at Random, Williams captures the struggles that Morrison—and most editors—began to face in the 1970s: balancing quality with demands for robust sales. But it’s clear from Williams’ book that when Morrison recognized an author with a singular voice who spoke truths about history, she nurtured and championed them. 

In her years at Random House, says Williams, Morrison “pushed boundaries by embracing emerging voices, upending widely held ‘truths,’ and reflecting the pulse of the moment with as much depth and integrity as her authors would allow.” Toni at Random vividly conveys Morrison’s commitment to preserving authenticity in her publishing work, and it also portrays a specific historical moment in the publishing industry and the benefits of a close editor-author relationship.