Professor Holloway has written ten books to date, which can be summarized as follows, in chronological order. ;*
New Dimensions of Spirituality: A BiRacial and BiCultural Reading of the Novels of Toni Morrison. Westport (1987; with S. Demetrakopoulos). This book is a series of essays about
Toni Morrison's first four novels:
The Bluest Eye,
Sula,
Song of Solomon, and
Tar Baby. The coauthors, both professors of English, each write one chapter on each novel, as well as a chapter of introduction, "personal reveries", and a conclusion. The writing is relatively free of academic jargon. However, Demetrakopoulos brings to bear an interest in women's studies and
Jungian psychology, whereas Holloway's interest is more in black studies and
linguistics. ;*
The Character of the Word: The Texts of Zora Neale Hurston (1987) This 1987 book follows up on Holloway's 1978 doctoral dissertation about the anthropologist
Zora Neale Hurston. According to Cynthia Davis and Verner Mitchell, this book by Holloway is a "rather dense study of linguistic codes in Hurston's novels." Davis and Mitchell acknowledge that the book does "usefully explore Hurston's battle against pejorative conceptions of dialect". ;*''Moorings & Metaphors: Figures of Culture and Gender in Black Women's Literature'' (1992) This 1992 study considers the ways that cultural tradition is reflected in the language and figures of black women's writing, covering works of
Gloria Naylor,
Alice Walker,
Ama Ata Aidoo,
Ntozake Shange,
Buchi Emecheta,
Octavia Butler,
Efua Sutherland,
Gayl Jones, and particularly focusing on
Toni Morrison's
Beloved and
Flora Nwapa's
Efuru. Analyzing the work of contemporary African-American and West African writers, Holloway draws connections across two continents. ;*
Codes of Conduct: Race, Ethics, and the Color of Our Character (1995) In
Codes of Conduct, Holloway departs from the formality of scholarly prose to meditate about her experiences as a black person in the larger society, the experiences of her son, and the experiences of African-American women who faced public trials and tribulations; in the latter category, she places
Tawana Brawley,
Anita Hill,
Phillis Wheatley,
Zora Neale Hurston, and
Whoopi Goldberg. This book also discusses the visual power of the black female body, the resonance and drama of language, and African-American community life. ;*
Passed On: African American Mourning Stories (2002) Holloway argues that the susceptibility of African-Americans to early death has had unique cultural effects, and this 2002 book examines the "life of death" in that culture. The book is a memorial for Bem Kayin Holloway, her adopted son who died in an attempted prison break, while serving up to 95 years in prison after pleading guilty to breaking and entering, robbery, rape, and attempted murder. At the time of his death, Bem was also facing first degree murder charges for the deaths of two other women. Karla Holloway studied mourning rituals and visited funeral homes throughout the United States as well as absorbing evidence from
Richard Wright's death in Paris, black cult members' deaths in
Jonestown, and other episodes. This is a survivor's tale, and a mordant humor surfaces occasionally. ;*
BookMarks: Reading in Black and White — A Memoir (2006) This 2006 book by Holloway profiles 25 black authors who tended in their memoirs to cite the white giants of English-language literature, while citing markedly fewer black authors, or merely listing the latter as afterthoughts. Holloway interprets this tendency of black authors to "bookmark" primarily white authors as a signal from the memoirists of their supremely literate mastery of Anglo-American literature. ;*
Private Bodies/Public Texts: Race, Gender, and a Cultural Bioethics (2011) In
Private Bodies/Public Texts, Holloway examines instances where personal medical information has been forced into the public sphere, and says that women and African Americans are often the victims. In view of history from
Henrietta Lacks to
Terri Schiavo, Holloway argues that some populations are more vulnerable to this phenomenon than others. ;*
Legal Fictions: Constituting Law, Composing Literature (2014) In
Legal Fictions, Professor Holloway explores the relationship between U.S. literature and U.S. jurisprudence, especially the effect that race concepts in law have had upon literary fiction. Holloway sees such relationships in Toni Morrison's
Beloved, in
Charles R. Johnson's
Middle Passage, in
David Bradley's
The Chaneysville Incident and in
Ralph Ellison's
Invisible Man. ;*
A Death in Harlem: A Novel (2019) In 2019,
Northwestern University Press published Holloway's debut novel, a mystery set in Jazz Age Harlem. The book's point of departure is the climactic ending of
Passing (novel), the 1929 novel by
Nella Larsen. In it, Holloway introduces Weldon Haynie Thomas, "Harlem’s first colored policeman."
Kirkus Reviews wrote that "Holloway brings her period, place, and people alive and provides as a bonus a most unexpected culprit." ;*
Gone Missing in Harlem: A Novel (2021) In her highly anticipated second novel, Karla Holloway evokes the resilience of a family whose journey traces the river of America’s early twentieth century. The Mosby family migrates north to the Harlem of their aspirations and arrive as Harlem staggers under the flu pandemic that follows the First World War. DeLilah Mosby and her daughter, Selma, meet difficulties with backbone and resolve to make a home for themselves in the city, and Selma has a baby, Chloe. The panic of the early thirties is embodied in the kidnapping and murder of the infant son of the nation’s dashing young aviator, Charles Lindbergh. A transfixed public follows the manhunt in the press and on the radio. Then Chloe goes missing—but her disappearance does not draw the same attention. Wry and perceptive Weldon Haynie Thomas, the city’s first “colored” policeman, takes the case. The urgent investigation tests Thomas’s abilities to draw out the secrets Harlem harbors, untangling the color-coded connections and relationships that keep company with greed, ghosts, and grief. With nuanced characters, lush historical detail, and a lyrical voice, Gone Missing in Harlem
Northwestern University Press affirms the restoring powers of home and family.
Buzz Feed News called it "unputdownable...a spellbinding story about family, grief, and perseverance, full of rich and resilient characters you’ll fall in love with."
Publishers Weekly starred review. ==Group of 88==