SOURCE: Montgomery, Maxine Lavon. Review of The Men of Brewster Place, by Gloria Naylor. African American Review 34, no. 1 (spring 2000): 176.

In the following mixed review, Montgomery asserts the importance of Naylor's exploration of African-American manhood in The Men of Brewster Place, but notes several serious flaws in the novel.

In The Men of Brewster Place Gloria Naylor not only revisits the dilapidated urban environs of her award-winning first novel, she breathes new life into the male residents who once wreaked havoc in the lives of African American women. Brewster Place's men, once mere shadows hardly deserving of the marginal space lent to their characterization, assume center stage in Naylor's latest work of fiction, telling of the trials and tribulations which have led them where they are. Naylor, a skillful writer adept at creating a range of uniquely individual characters—each with a story to tell—turns her artistic and...