SOURCE: Thomas, Jackie. “A Compassionate Portrait of Black Men.” Black Issues in Higher Education 15, no. 21 (10 December 1998): 31.

In the following review, Thomas offers a positive assessment of The Men of Brewster Place.

Gloria Naylor's The Men of Brewster Place is a profound work that explores the other side of the gender issue. It is a continuation of Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place and depicts the men who played only minor roles in that book.

The men of Brewster Place are presented as rational Black men who are able to think for themselves and who realize that they have problems they must solve. Naylor's positive depiction shows them as men struggling to correct their faults, or as individuals trying to make sense of their lives.

The book is divided into 10 chapters that start with “Dusk” and end with “Dawn.” It discusses the lives of seven characters known as the...