A dispute over “Beloved” in the Virginia governor’s race is making Toni Morrison’s book a best seller

The Virginia governor’s race waded into US culture wars this week when Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin seemed to take aim at Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved.

On Oct. 25 Youngkin released an ad featuring a supporter named Laura Murphy, who tried to ban Beloved from her son’s school in a northwest suburb of Virginia in 2013, and later lobbied state lawmakers to pass a bill allowing parents to “opt out” their children from reading sexually explicit content in schools. Youngkin’s challenger, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, later vetoed the bill when he was serving a term as governor.