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1-Page Summary of Song of Solomon

Overview

A man named Smith attempts to fly off the roof of a hospital and dies. In wake of this, a woman gives birth inside the hospital for the first time. Her son is soon called Milkman because she continues to nurse him after he’s weaned. As a child, Milkman becomes friends with Guitar and gets acquainted with Pilate, his father’s sister-in-law who he wasn’t allowed to see as a child by his father Macon Dead II who was motivated by money and told his son that “Own things and let your things own other things.” Soon, these effects leave Milkman naive without spiritual identity.

Milkman starts his romantic relationship with Hagar, Pilate’s granddaughter. He also takes over the responsibility of helping his father collect rent money and do bookkeeping for the store. Milkman continues to hang out with Guitar and they become close friends. Eventually, Guitar tells him that he is part of a group called The Seven Days, which kills white people as revenge for slavery and other injustices against blacks. Milkman tries to warn him about losing his humanity by killing innocent people but it seems like nothing can stop Guitar from becoming a killer.

Milkman is a character in the novel Song of Solomon. He learns that Pilate, an old woman he doesn’t know much about, has left him half of her estate. Milkman and his friend Guitar decide to break into Pilate’s house to find out what she left behind for them. They discover human bones instead of gold nuggets and are arrested by the police. After spending some time in jail, they’re released when Pilate comes to explain herself personally. This event causes Milkman to come back from being catatonic and start searching for the gold himself since it’s now all he can think about.

Milkman goes to Pennsylvania in search of gold, but he finds nothing. He does meet some people who knew his grandfather though, such as Circe and Reverend Cooper. They tell him that his grandfather’s real name was Jake and that his grandmother was an Indian woman by the name of Sing. Milkman now wants to find out more about his family history than the gold so he goes down to Shalimar, Virginia

Milkman, a newcomer to a small Southern town, finds himself in danger when he is tracked down by Guitar who wants to kill him for supposedly stealing his half of the gold. Milkman learns about his family history through songs passed on from generation to generation. It’s revealed that Solomon left behind twenty-one children after escaping slavery and moving back to Africa. His son Jake stayed with Heddy, an Indian woman who also had Singing Bird as her daughter. Once grown up, Jake and Singing Bird fled North on a wagon full of freemen slaves.

The protagonist of the novel, Milkman is a selfish and greedy person. His time in Virginia changes him to be more compassionate and altruistic. On his way back home, he tells Pilate that the bones she has been carrying are those of her father’s remains. Upon returning to Shalimar, they bury Jake’s remains when a bullet intended for Milkman accidentally kills Pilate instead. Devastated at his recent loss but spiritually reborn, Milkman jumps towards Guitar knowing that if “you surrendered to the air you could ride it.”

Chapter 1

On a snowy February afternoon, Robert Smith, an insurance agent from North Carolina jumps to his death from the rooftop of No Mercy Hospital. Although he posts a note two days in advance telling everyone that he’s going to jump off the roof, only those who happen to be there witness this suicide. The street used to be called Doctor Street and was later renamed Not Doctor Street after its’ only doctor died. On the day of Mr. Smith’s flight, it admitted its first black patient for childbirth – no mercy indeed!