Taking a close look at all the key male figures in Toni Morrison s eight novels, this book explores Morrison s admitted, but critically neglected, interest in the relationships between African American men and women and the axes on which these relationships turn. Most Morrison scholarship deals with her female characters. "Can t I Love What I Criticize?" offers a response to this imbalance and to Morrison s call for more work on men, who remain, in her words, outside of that little community value thing.

The book also considers the barriers between black men and women thrown up by their...