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Jazz (novel)

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Jazz
First edition cover
AuthorToni Morrison
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistorical novel
PublisherAlfred A. Knopf Inc.
Publication date
1992
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages229
ISBN0-679-41167-4
Preceded byBeloved 
Followed byParadise 

Jazz is a 1992 historical novel by Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning American author Toni Morrison. The majority of the narrative takes place in Harlem during the 1920s; however, as the pasts of the various characters are explored, the narrative extends back to the mid-19th-century American South.

The novel forms the second part of Morrison's Dantesque trilogy on African-American history, beginning with Beloved (1987) and ending with Paradise (1998).

Legacy

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Jazz was Morrison’s most recently published work when she was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature. In the novel, "Morrison uses a device which is akin to the way jazz itself is played… The result is a richly complex, sensuously conveyed image of the events, the characters and moods."[1]

The novel is referenced in S1 Ep5 of the NBC procedural show Found. The character of Felice is referred to as "one of Toni Morrison's most dynamic characters" and "curious [and] brilliant."

Characters

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  • Joe Trace, a door-to-door cosmetics salesman and the murderer of his young lover.
  • Violet Trace, an unlicensed beautician. Violet is married to Joe. She is nicknamed "Violent" because she assaulted the corpse of Joe’s lover with a knife at the funeral.
  • Dorcas, Joe's young lover, who is shot down at a party. Dorcas is inspired by a picture from The Harlem Book of the Dead (a collection of funeral photographs by James Van Der Zee).
  • Alice Manfred, Dorcas' aunt and guardian. A conservative Christian ashamed by her niece's behavior. Alice enters into an unusual friendship with Violet.
  • Felice, a friend of Dorcas' who goes to the Trace household in search of answers.
  • Golden Gray, a mixed-race man from the 19th century. Golden appears in both Joe's and Violet's histories.

References

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  1. ^ "Toni Morrison", The Nobel Prize, Press release, October 7, 1993.