Biography

Toni Cade Bambara was a native of New York City who devoted her life to her writing and her social activism. Her causes ranged from improving the living conditions of minority city dwellers to creating television documentaries about racial or social injustice. Like Bambara herself, many of the characters in her short stories, most often women, were also community activists who derived strength from storytelling. Bambara's works include the short-story collections Gorilla, My Love (1972) and The Sea Birds Are Still Alive (1977) and the novel The Salt Eaters (1981).

Explorations

In Medley (1977) we can see resemblances between the form of the story and the improvisations of modern jazz. But this is fiction, not a musical medley, and as an accomplished writer, Bambara does respond to, and comment upon, the American realist tradition in fiction and certain basic expectations and practices of contemporary storytelling.

1. Locate several moments in which Sweet Pea muses on the talents of other people as tellers of tales and on the worth of any story, told badly or well. Why does she tell us about Hector as a "bad storyteller," but as "an absolute artist on windows"?

2. How would you describe the overall experience of reading Medley? How would you compare it to the experience of reading works by Welty, O'Connor, or Toomer?

Other sites to consult:

• An appreciation of Bambara by Toni Morrison, Bambara's editor at Random House. From The Nation (10/28/96).
• In Praise of Toni Cade Bambara, a brief article and poem by Alice Lovelace from In Motion Magazine. Includes a discussion forum.