The Men of Brewster Place

Content Warning: This section discusses racism, violence, death and murder, anti-gay bias, sexual abuse, and addiction.

The Men of Brewster Place tells the story of men with shared struggles who nevertheless live in isolation. In The Women of Brewster Place, Naylor explores how Black women survive through community and bonds of sisterhood. However, the systemic racism and oppression that Naylor’s male characters face serve to isolate them from one another by painting their inability to achieve certain markers of manhood as a personal failure. However, Naylor does identify some spaces where Black men come together to create community. While these spaces highlight the men’s shared experience and the systemic nature of the oppression the men face, the characters’ focus on masculine traits of self-definition, independence, and individuality eventually undermines efforts at community building and support.

Brother Jerome’s music exemplifies of community and shared experience in The Men of Brewster Place. His songs carry “the sound of a black man’s blues” (37), and all of the men on Brewster Place can hear their story in his music. Although the men face diverse, complex problems, Jerome’s music finds a common thread among the “sadder and sadder stories” that populate Brewster Place (161), suggesting that their issues are rooted in the marginalized place they occupy in society.