A life distorted by a lie, and by the expectations of others, is the matter of this eloquent, unsettling novel, set among Irish-Americans in New York.

He did that by writing half a dozen eloquent novels that were published, and widely applauded, between 1936 and 1940.

An eloquent first novel that shows the lives and hearts of poor black and white people, with malice toward none.

But this is such an eloquent, captivating novel that its occasional missteps don't much signify.

The answer, this eloquent novel suggests, is both.

"No one sat me down and told me I was a Negro," reads the opening sentence of Darryl Pinckney's eloquent first novel, "High Cotton."

"Latecomers" is an extraordinarily eloquent novel, full of pleasures as well as lessons.

Then, in 1873, in a segment that unfolds more gradually than Ms. Morrison's eloquent novel does, an old friend arrives at Sethe's door.

"The Blue Bowl," an ambitious and eloquent first novel, is a mordant Oedipal saga.

Latecomers' is an extraordinarily eloquent novel, full of pleasures as well as lessons," David Leavitt said here in 1989.