Linden Hills

Gloria Naylor published Linden Hills in 1985, three years after the publication of her debut novel, The Women of Brewster Place. While Naylor’s debut novel focuses on women living in an impoverished housing development, Linden Hills examines an affluent black community through the eyes of two young men: Lester, a Linden Hills resident, and Willie, an outsider living on Wayne Avenue.

The Linden Hills neighborhood is the “place to be” (260) in Wayne County, with its “imitation Swiss chalets, British Tudors, and Georgian town houses flanked by arbors choked with morning glories” (10). The ultimate prize is a house on Tupelo Drive. However, “only ‘certain’ people got to live in Linden Hills,” and no one seems to notice that despite the multitude of applicants aspiring to live in Linden Hills, there are always vacant houses in the neighborhood (15). Linden Hills is overseen—and ruled—by the Nedeed family, and has been for generations. Luther Nedeed is currently responsible for choosing who lives in Linden Hills, and he knows that something has gone terribly wrong with his ancestor’s dream. Despite their wealth, status, and success, the residents of Linden Hills have “plastic postures” (162) and a “bright nothing” inside them (17).