"Actually I think my editor was right. The original word was the 'wrong' word. But I also know my friend was right: the 'wrong' word, in this case, was the only word. As you can see, my assertion of agency outside the raced house turned into a genuflection in its (familiar) more comfortable yard."

What Ulin misses is the book's point about home, its admonishments against 'the writer.' Ulin almost gets this, but ultimately his is the voice of the editor who compelled Morrison to change the last line of Beloved, a decision Morrison regretted in her 1994 speech at the Race Matters conference:

Mike Davis puts it succinctly in 1992, “this de facto war against cities has been one of the strategic pillars of modern conservative politics, embodying profound electoral & economic objectives.” He discusses how the American Enterprise Institute sought to cut urban aid & undo the Great Society.

The call to bring the ghosts & hauntings of history to light is turning into a mechanism to control us, facilitated by our participation in the enterprise. What if meaningful human life today is in the beauty of keeping some things hidden? How to do that without turning ignorance into a cult object.