Jazz (Magill Book Reviews)
At a glance:
- Author: Toni Morrison
- First Published: 1992
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: African Americans, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Blacks, Murder or homicide, South or Southerners, New York City, Harlem Renaissance, 1920’s, Adultery
- Locales: Virginia, Harlem, NY
Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller BELOVED (1988) was a hard act to follow, but her new novel, JAZZ, is an adventurous, richly imagined work that extends her range into Afro-American city life.
JAZZ begins with a terse, anecdotal story that seems closely akin to such blues ballads as "Frankie and Johnny." Joe Trace, a door-to-door salesman in his fifties, has a "deepdown, spooky love" for eighteen-year-old Dorcas, but he shoots her when their three-month-old affair goes awry. Joe’s wife Alice then takes a strange revenge by bursting in on Dorcas’ funeral...
[The entire page is 946 words long]
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