The Women of Brewster Place is a set of interconnected short stories about the lives of Black women on a single urban block in an unnamed city. Through these stories, Gloria Naylor also narrates the arc of racialized US urban development and decay from the 1910s through the late '70s/early '80s.

Normally I'm really into the style of women's social realist melodrama in which Naylor writes. There are some great sentences, dialogue, and imagery throughout these stories. The best parts are those in which Black women's love and care for each other shine through, as well as the moments where Naylor seems to be offering gentle critique from a loving position. But throughout the book, the overtones are of suffering and punishment, and sometimes Naylor seems to verge into moral condemnation. The stories are harsher on individual Black women (and sometimes men) than on the structures that proscribe their lives. It was hard for me to tell whom this book is for.