The Men of Brewster Place

Published in 1998, The Men of Brewster Place is a companion to Gloria Naylor’s acclaimed 1982 novel, The Women of Brewster Place. Written as a series of vignettes, the novel tells the intertwining stories of seven Black men living in Brewster Place, a degrading apartment block in an unnamed American city. Each must fight to define his identity as a man while existing within the confines of a racist, sexist society. With themes of pain and loss, performative masculinity, and the impact of systemic racism, Naylor explores the complexity of the Black male experience and asks what it truly means to be a “man.”

This guide refers to the 1998 Hyperion hardback edition of the text.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss racism, violence, death and murder, anti-gay bias, suicide and suicidal ideation, sexual abuse and violence, abortion, and addiction.

Plot Summary

The first chapter is narrated by Brewster Place’s janitor, Ben, who was the first Black man to move to the block in the 1950s. He describes how everyone, men and women alike, struggled with poverty, disappointment, and broken dreams. Ben argues that every man in Brewster Place “hoped for better” and worked hard, even if they were “working at despair” (8).

Ben tells his own life story, beginning in Tennessee with his sharecropper grandparents. Ben’s grandfather was an angry and silent old man, bitter from a lifetime of injustices and haunted by the rape and subsequent death of his sister. When Ben grew up, he moved to Memphis, where he worked until he met Elvira. The two married and moved to the country, where they became sharecroppers and lived in poverty. They had one daughter who worked cleaning the landowner’s house. One day, she confessed that the man had tried to abuse her. Elvira claimed that her daughter was “lazy” and refused to believe her. She blamed Ben for their poverty and said that if he were “even a quarter of a man” (26), he would provide his family with a better life. Ashamed by his inadequacy, Ben didn’t defend his daughter, and she eventually ran away from home. Elvira left him, and Ben moved north to Brewster Place. Now, he drinks to avoid the guilt of failing to protect his daughter and wonders, “What does it mean to be a man?” (28).

Chapter 3 tells the story of Brother Jerome, a boy with an intellectual disability and a gift for playing the piano. Jerome is nonverbal and cannot perform basic tasks, but his music makes “the sound of a black man’s blues” (37), resonating with all the men of Brewster Place.

The fourth chapter is about Basil, who was involved in a fatal bar fight and charged with involuntary manslaughter. His mother, Mattie Michael, used her house as collateral to bail him out of jail, but he violated the terms of his bond and ran, causing her to lose everything. Determined to pay her back, he worked multiple jobs for three years; however, by the time he had saved enough, his mother was dead. Basil decided to dedicate himself to becoming a family man and soon met Keisha, a single mother with two sons. He married her and adopted her boys. The boys were used to men vanishing from their lives, but Basil promised never to leave them. However, after an argument, Keisha called the police, and Basil served six years for his previous crime. In his absence, one of the boys spent time in juvenile detention, and the other became angry and silent. Basil wonders if things would have turned out differently if he had been able to stay with them.

In Chapter 5, Eugene is a closeted gay man struggling to leave his marriage. He loves his wife, Ceil, and their baby daughter, but when his foreman at work takes him to a gay bar, he can no longer deny his sexuality. He lies to Ceil, picks fights, and repeatedly tries to leave her. During their last fight, their baby daughter electrocutes herself in the other room. Eugene feels responsible for the baby’s death and is devastated by the loss. After the funeral, he goes to a local sex worker’s home and asks to be whipped, looking for “redemption.”

Chapter 6 tells the story of Moreland T. Woods, a womanizing reverend who preaches at Sinai Baptist Church near Brewster Place. He hopes to grow his congregation and use the notoriety to become mayor, but to do so, Sinai Baptist needs a bigger, more impressive church. Woods tries to convince his deacons’ board to build a bigger church. Deacon Bennett, however, sees Woods’s self-serving impulse and wants to use the church’s funds to create programs to support the community. Woods decides to have the congregation vote on the subject and begins a battle to win the vote while the deacons’ board spreads a rumor that a new church would bankrupt the congregation. Woods wins the congregation’s vote, and they break ground on a new building, but Deacon Bennett isn’t finished fighting for his church.

The seventh chapter is about C.C. Baker, a young criminal being interviewed by the police about the murder of his brother. C.C. has spent his entire life on the streets around Brewster Place and has turned to a life of crime to find the “money, power, and respect” missing from his father’s life (123). The neighborhood’s top dealer, Beetle Royal, considered taking C.C. on as his new junior lieutenant, but first, he had to prove his loyalty by killing his brother. He shot his brother and thanked God for giving him “the courage to be a man” (129).

Chapter 8 begins with Abshu, who is sitting in a cafe plotting the assassination of Reverend Woods. The people of Brewster Place elected Woods to the city council, but then he voted to demolish Brewster Place. Abshu, who worked hard to get Woods elected, is furious. Abshu spent much of his childhood in foster care, and now he runs a community center where he supports Brewster Place’s youth. Together, he and a friend plan Woods’s downfall. On the next city council meeting day, a large group of women actors recruited by Abshu assemble outside the city hall. They are pregnant or pushing strollers, and all claim that Woods is the father of their children. Woods knows that the women are lying, but he worries that one or two might be telling the truth and agrees to resign. He is replaced by a conservative white councilman, making Abshu wonder if ousting Woods did any good.

Chapter 9 describes Max’s barbershop, the “heartbeat” of Brewster Place. Sometimes, a man called Greasy comes in for a haircut. Greasy has lost his job, family, and mind to crack addiction, but Max always serves the man. Greasy responds to every comment directed at him by saying, “I’m trying,” but sometimes he becomes upset, pounding on his chest and shouting, “I’m a man” (160). One day, Greasy enters the barbershop, seizes the barber, and holds a straight edge to his neck, repeating, “I’m a man” (166). He lets the barber go but slits his own throat before anyone can stop him, spraying the shop and the assembled men with blood. After Greasy’s death, the shop is closed for a week, and when it reopens, the men don’t talk about what happened. Ben suggests that they are all responsible for Greasy’s death; they forgot that he was their “brother” and didn’t help him. Brewster Place is slated for demolition, but until then, the barbershop will be a place for the men to gather and remember that “[they] thrive and are alive” (167).

With Brewster Place condemned, Abshu spends the night on the quiet street waiting for dawn. He wonders if he could have done more to save the place but thinks that even “a million men […] could not hold back the dawn” (172). He is a “tired warrior” but determined to keep fighting.