Women of Brewster Place, The

a novel in seven stories by Gloria Naylor, published in 1982. The narratives that form this work are linked by their setting—the apartment block situated in a black ghetto referred to in the title—and by the reappearance in minor roles of previously foregrounded characters; each one focuses on the life of one of seven women inhabitants of Brewster Place. Grim with reference to racism, misogyny, homophobia, and urban deprivation, Naylor's first work nevertheless culminates in a climactic sequence—the collective dismantling of the wall that symbolizes their exclusion—that celebrates the strength, solidarity, and resilience of the women whose tribulations it unflinchingly records.