The Way Forward Is With a Broken Heart

In what seems to be a memoir curiously masquerading as 13 autobiographical short stories, Walker explores the intimate relationships of a world famous African American activist/ feminist/ writer. Linked by this distinctive protagonist, whose name changes with her stage in life (exhausted young divorcée ''Rosa'' becomes confident middle aged bisexual ''Anne''), The Way Forward Is With a Broken Heart resembles a passionate but piecemeal roman à clef -- one marred by occasional streams of self help platitudes (see the title).

Nonetheless, the novella length ''To My Young Husband,'' which viscerally fictionalizes Walker's 1960s era ''magical marriage'' to a Jewish civil rights lawyer and their wrenching divorce, boasts Walker's most commanding, moving writing since ''The Color Purple,'' prose that forges personal and political insights into shimmering poetry.