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Son Green is the obvious catalyst who precipitates suspended emotions and passions. The author wisely does not explain too much. She depends on a ripe, sometimes overripe, prose style to create atmospheres in which strange things are possible. The Caribbean, with its buried history of slave trade and uprisings, its lingering essense of negritude, is a good stage. Morrison attempts to evoke island life with touches of the magic realism that made Song of Solomon so successful. It does not quite work in Tar Baby. In fact, the strongest sense of place is conveyed in a scene set in New York City, where the author is an editor for a leading publishing firm. —By R.Z. Sheppard