SOURCE: Barnes, Paula. “Blues Symphony.” Belles Lettres 8, no. 3 (spring 1993): 56.

In the following review, Barnes discusses the suspension of disbelief and the use of blues music in Bailey's Cafe.

Gloria Naylor in her fourth novel continues the traditions she has established in her earlier works: a scathing yet quiet criticism of American racism, allegorical commentary, fusion of the epic and natural, and suspension of reality. Yet in Bailey's Cafe, Naylor adds a new dimension to her work, using African American music as a unifying motif. To read this book is to listen to the blues. The epigraph tells us: “Look and you can hear the blues open a place never closing.” Although the literal place is Bailey's, the figurative places are in the hearts and lives of the characters. Served in Bailey's cafe is a bill of fare of lost souls for whom life has dished out more than...