Susan Isaacs' review of Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo by Ntozake ShangeSusan Isaacs thinks that Ntozake Shange's debut novel, Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, is mildly entertaining and enjoyable, but his writing, “sometimes it loses a thread and makes a mess” (395). Isaacs praises Shange's style, while finding fault with some of the techniques she employs. The main character introduced to readers in Post Modern American Fiction's excerpt from Shange's novel Sassafrass Cypress, and Indigo is Indigo, the youngest of Shange's three daughters. the story. The character of Indigo borders on the mystical. She has dolls that she still talks with and a violin that Sister Mary Louise, a friend of Indigo, remarks: “Too much Holy Spirit came out of Indigo and that violin” (Shange, 44). One of Isaacs' criticisms concerns Indigo's use of magic. Indigo is passionate about the violin, she “mastered the hum of dusk, the crescendos of the cicadas, the rushes of the marshes in light winds, the thunder at high tide and the laughter of her mother in the corridor” (Shange, 45 years old). The technique of mixing magic and violin playing did not sit well with Isaacs, who said: "It is an intriguing idea, but it fails because, although the author attempts to present Indigo as an innocent wise man, a powerful mystical, a joyous embodiment of the dark spirit, the rhetoric of her musings is radical feminist and earthy, predictable and idiotic... "Isaacs continues his criticism of the idea that Indigo has magical abilities and of the use of magic as a storyline and as part of Indigo's character, saying: "And if Indigo's dark magic is real,... How can she and her people - a people with such powerful magic - tolerate the. evils that the author so movingly catalogs?" (396). Isaacs questions the reason for Indigo's magical and mystical qualities and continues down this path, wondering if magic could be a metaphor, a fantasy of Indigo or Shange's own representation of black folklore Regardless of the intended representation of Indigo's magical qualities, Isaacs believes that "it is not presented with sufficient clarity. The reader remains slightly fond of Indigo—people who talk to dolls can be enchanting—but is nevertheless confused about her role. in the novel" (394). Despite Isaacs's problems with the structure of the novel and some of the devices and techniques Shange uses in her character development, she praises Shange as a novelist, comparing her art at weaving, a skill shared by Sassafrass's mother and eldest daughter, Cypress and Indigo.