Jazz cover

Jazz is a novel by Toni Morrison set in 1926 in uptown Harlem. Toni Morrison Toni Morrison is an African-American author, born Chloe Anthony Wofford, February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. ... 1926 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article is about the Harlem neighborhood in New York City. ...

The book tells the story of Joe Trace, a door-to-door salesman of beauty products in his fifties, and how he murders his teenage lover, Dorcas. His wife, Violet, who is a hairdresser, then attempts to disfigure the body at the funeral.

"Jazz is the story of a triangle of passion, jealousy, murder and redemption, of sex and spirituality, of slavery and liberation, of country and city, of being male and female, African American, and above all of being human. Like the music of its title, it is a dazzlingly lyric play on elemental themes, as soaring and daring as a Charlie Parker solo, as heartbreakingly powerful as the blues." (Back Cover)