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Jazz

3.7 of 5 stars 3.70 · rating details · 9,380 ratings · 432 reviews

In the winter of 1926, when everybody everywhere sees nothing but good things ahead, Joe Trace, middle-aged door-to-door salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe’s wife, Violet, attacks the girl’s corpse. This passionate, profound story of love and obsession brings us back and forth in time, as a narrative is assembled f...more

Paperback, 256 pages

Published June 8th 2004 by Vintage (first published 1992)

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Jan 15, 2009 brian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to brian by: alisa

jazz. the 3rd morrison in my plan to knock ‘em all out over the next month or so…significantly weaker than the other two i’ve read, but still... it’s almost a shame that morrison writes about such incendiary and zeitgeisty stuff as you pull back much of the (mostly) nonsensical cultural criticism that surrounds her, her work, and her readers and she’s just a first class storyteller. just a great, great writer. amongst all the tragedy and despair, there’s a joyfulness in the work (and, for me, on...more

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Mar 31, 2009 Sandi rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I like Toni Morrison. Beloved is one of my top 10 favorite books of all time. My first Morrison, The Bluest Eye, took me by surprise with it's power. I appreciated the rhythm of Jazz, but couldn't connect to the story.

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Mar 04, 2008 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Jazz is one of the books I can't leave alone long enough to forget it before I must read it again--the only way I can break the habit is to give it away to someone and then not buy a copy until I just can't wait anymore. For my money the peak of Morrison's fiction to date, Jazz is in large part about unlikely human relationships and the unexpected ways we touch and are touched by others. Middle-aged salesman Joe Trace's affair with teen Dorcas ends in him murdering her, but this is only the be...more

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Sep 15, 2008 Maggie Campbell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"...and when she got back to her apartment she took the birds from their cages and set them out the windows to freeze or fly, including the parrot that said, 'I love you.'"

"Maybe she thought she could solve the mystery of love that way. Good luck and let me know."

"...you have to be clever to figure out how to be welcoming and defensive at the same time. When to love something and when to quit. If you don't know how, you can end up out of control or controlled by some outside thing..."

"You are th...more

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Feb 04, 2009 Hollis rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction

Just as 'Beloved' dealt with maternal love, in this work Morrison turns to jealousy and romantic love and produces another brilliant novel: poetic, vivid, sensual. Looking at the negative comments that some of the reviewers have given I think they mainly boil down to the effect that Morrison is difficult to read. If you're not willing to put in some effort and to actually use your imagination, then you had better return this to the book-store and swap it for that Stephen King novel you had your...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Anna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporay-fiction, mental-illness

The language of this book is so beautiful, which makes an interesting counter-point to the lives of the characters which often are so far from beautiful. The structure of the narrative can feel a little disjointed at times as Morrison jumps from time to time, narrator to narrator. Despite this she weaves a moving tale with light and shade like the eponymous music for which the story is named. I highly recommend the audiobook, which for me really made the poetry and rhythm of the words more appar...more

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Nov 11, 2012 Dave rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Of Morrison's 10 novels this is the 7th I've read, and though I believe she ranks with Melville, O'Connor, Faulkner, and DeLillo as the five truly great fiction writers this country has ever produced, I ended up viewing this book as quite mediocre. This is a shame, as the first half was at a 4.25 star level, with a very Morrisonesque love story of a salesman, his beautician wife, and the young woman who is loved and then murdered by the former before being stabbed at her own funeral by the latte...more

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Nov 20, 2011 Brandon Floyd rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Morrison is able to navigate setting, tone and time better than any writer I've ever read, but she doesn't pull that off quite as well in Jazz. It took quite some time for me to get into the narrative of this novel, and once the writing finally hits its stride Morrison completely shifts focus from foreground to back-story. While the writing remains effective and thought-provoking, the storytelling suffers. At just 229 pages, there simply isn't enough room for the digressions taken in the latter...more

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Sep 12, 2011 Stephanie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not a whole lot to say about this one. I wanted to read something more literary and this was on clearance at Half-Price books. Certainly worth reading. Morrison has a very fluid style that keeps me turning pages. This book dragged in very few places, and the language was fun to read.

I seem to be reading her major books in reverse. "Jazz" has been called the second part of a trilogy with "Beloved" and "Paradise" focusing on parental love, erotic love, and religious love. I've read "Paradise" but...more

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Jun 26, 2012 Piperitapitta marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Avevo tentato di acquistare questo romanzo della Morrison parecchi mesi fa, su Amazon. Sono stata in ballo a lungo, finch�� non mi �� arrivata un'email, qualche tempo fa, che mi comunicava che il libro era irreperibile.
Ero gi�� rassegnata all'idea di prenderlo in prestito in biblioteca, quando la settimana scorsa ho voluto provare ancora una volta a controllarne la disponibilit��, ancora su Amazon.
Ce n'era una sola copia, usata, ed io l'ho presa al volo.
Oggi mi �� arrivato un pacchetto dalla Ant...more

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Jan 26, 2012 Roger DeBlanck rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Jazz is perhaps Morrison’s most unique and elusive novel. Nearly five years after winning the Pulitzer for Beloved and a year before she received the Nobel Prize, Jazz was published in 1992. The novel solidified Morrison’s reputation as a writer whose daring has no bounds, as she offers readers a maze of narratives that stretch out like branches but always remain connected to the tree. Alternating between the country and the city, between the past and the present, Jazz tells the story of Joe and...more

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Mar 02, 2011 Ems Dawson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of my favorite books of all time!

I was lucky enough to study this book during 6th form college with a good teacher. Instead of butchering its beauty she illuminated it; leading us through the more complex prose (their beauty all more appreciated due to a deeper level of understanding) and highlighting some of the more obscure elements that might have gone unnoticed (or perhaps not understood).

At 16, though not niave, I was perhaps unaware of the many elements and angles of understanding rela...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: african-american-lit

Anyone who has been through adversity knows the view. It’s that view of life stripped down to nothing but the basic. All you’re left with is your breath, and sometimes that feels like it’s slipping away. But you still have something, even if it’s ugly, even if it has no map, even if no one cares. What happens next is a choice. You can choose to take the basics of life that are left and build around them. What you weave becomes something on your terms. Why else does adversity create some of the b...more Anyone who has been through adversity knows the view. It’s that view of life stripped down to nothing but the basic. All you’re left with is your breath, and sometimes that feels like it’s slipping away. But you still have something, even if it’s ugly, even if it has no map, even if no one cares. What happens next is a choice. You can choose to take the basics of life that are left and build around them. What you weave becomes something on your terms. Why else does adversity create some of the best art? It sheds that which arrived from the outside.

On a large scale, adversity is represented in oppression. Old paradigms no longer apply. Either something new is created, or death occurs. Jazz, because life requires improvisation; this is a route that no one has traveled. People constantly thrown into immobile structures have to re-create themselves to absorb the impact. Adaptation regains control.

Understanding WHY is not always the intention. A Toni Morrison novel is beautiful through the way it weaves in and around. You ride on the words, seeing areas that compliment rather than obscure. Stay on the surface, don’t drown. Like the voice guiding us through “Jazz”, life calls for your touch. In a society where imitation is expected, individuality becomes destroyed.

Your heritage merges with the present, and becomes the future. But the route is quickly adjusted to accommodate the other. Recognize the part. Move, bend, and retain your tone. Someone else is not playing your role, but you do live among them. Hate stops the music. To keep the interplay vibrant and tonal, we love.

Open up and learn how to live. Music is able to be enjoyed because one note leads to the next. Why move so quickly? Slow down and listen. Once it’s over, that time and place are gone.

Morrison confounds in a world where we don’t know how to experience. Just be. Soak everything in. The journey is seen through your lens. Let all you are and all you’ve ever been become your expression. Then learn to see through the lens of the suffering. Bring more and more artistry to the piece by allowing their voices to bend around your own. Beautiful harmonies are then created.

Sometimes dissonance will occur. Like jazz, life is improvised as you go. The exact same note-pattern-tone never occurs twice. Learn from that. Move with it. Look for the best. Make the tone return to a rich, sweet sound.

Don’t let others put restrictions on your artistry. Never conform. We are here to complete, not to take away that soul, that deep passion from our fellow musicians.

Morrison comes from a people who have mastered this art. However, we share life, and improvisation is required from everyone to make a unified expression. We all have our own forms of adversity. Use it to learn how to express. Take the experience, and don’t regret. Move forward never back. What you played in the past is over. The future is always a new piece. But the musical proficiency is easier as you go, and the fun part, like reading Morrison, is experiencing each note in that one moment it’s played. (less)

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Jun 23, 2012 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In my mind, Toni Morrison is not so much a writer as she is a highly skilled carpet weaver with a degree in neuroscience.

Weaver: Her stories are intricate, complex, and beautiful, in a way that reminds me of high quality rugs. At a pace that feels both comfortable and natural, but is in reality only known to her, she introduces disparate narrative threads that she then weaves and intertwines with one another in the most unexpected ways, creating dozens of patterns of varying size and shape that...more In my mind, Toni Morrison is not so much a writer as she is a highly skilled carpet weaver with a degree in neuroscience.

Weaver: Her stories are intricate, complex, and beautiful, in a way that reminds me of high quality rugs. At a pace that feels both comfortable and natural, but is in reality only known to her, she introduces disparate narrative threads that she then weaves and intertwines with one another in the most unexpected ways, creating dozens of patterns of varying size and shape that reappear and intermingle with each other throughout the rug-novel. Like a rug, her stories have a cyclical symmetry to them that is in a way perfect - a whole world contained within what at first glance appears to be the most commonplace object. That, and I maintain an unexplained yet abiding image of Morrison sitting at a loom.

Neuroscientist: Morrison has a deep understanding of the functions of human memory. Indeed her novels mimic it in an almost uncanny way. She’ll slip in a word, or a banal turn of phrase, some little alliterative lilt that reminds you of the way a marginal character spoke in the previous chapter, and before you know it she’s brought another thread into the mix, shuttling it through the textile of the present moment, reminding you what it feels like to remember. Morrison’s novels are about memory. About how events and images from the past (in her case mostly painful ones) are integrated, processed, and digested into consciousness, and about the bewildering patterns they take on. One wonders if she hasn’t done some type of specialized research on the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.

And “Jazz” is no exception to the loom-toting neurologist constellation. This narrative is Morrison at her best – it folds in on itself, opens up, repeats, and spirals off in infinite concentricities, just like I like. The novel’s ostensible theme also makes room for some new innovations. The narrative speeds up, slows down and detains itself in odd, uncomfortable places, unlike the previous novels of hers that I’ve read, but very much like the music for which it is named. Like jazz, “Jazz” has an impromptu tone punctuated by sporadic solo performances, and doesn’t seem so much to progress as to simply flow in a space that appears to have neither end nor beginning.

That said, I don’t know how I feel about the plot. Though compelling at points, the drama starts to approach sensation, and at moments almost feels like a soap opera. Whereas in a novel like “Beloved,” the horror seemed always to float unspoken just below the surface, the litany of hardships and disasters in “Jazz” felt gratuitously juicy. In any case, it was super good. Recommended!
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Jul 02, 2009 El rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: late20th-centurylit, 1001-books-list, radio-ga-ga

Here we have a rather twisted love triangle consisting of Joe and Joe's wife, Violet (often referred to as Violent due to some of her actions), and Joe's young lover, Dorcas. The narrative has more to do with jazz than the actual story, in that it flows musically (yet discordantly at times), reminiscent of jazz/blues music. Jumping from 1920s Harlem to the antebellum South, there is an exceptional amount of history in this rather small book.

I felt rather disconnected from the story itself, never...more

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Jul 16, 2011 Kenny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: advisory-2011-2012

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 25, 2010 Ruth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: jazz lovers; Morrison fans

Shelves: fiction

229 pages. Donated 2010 May.

Jazz embraces the vibrant music and lifestyle of 1920s Harlem, an urban renaissance of opportunity and glamour. A novel of murder, hard lives, and broken dreams, Jazz sways with a lyric medley of voices and human consciousness.
Joe Trace and his wife Violet were part of the migration of black southerners to Harlem; madly in love with each other and the idea of this urban mecca, they "traindanced into the city." But like so many of the marriages in Morrison's novels, th...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Anthony Watkins rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jazz is by far the weakest link in Toni's early (pre 2005) books. The Bluest Eye was a very hard read, no pleasure, but a great work of art, and Beloved was a bit overwrought for my tastes, but ALL of her other pre 2005 work rates her as a major important writer. There is almost nothing to redeem this little book. Maybe if it had been written by a lesser writer, I would feel more kindly towards it, but compared to Sula, Tar Baby, Song of Solomon, Bluest Eye, and even Beloved, and certainly when...more

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Apr 10, 2013 Michael Bryson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

[This review first appeared in Imprint, University of Waterloo, June 26, 1992]

"Sth, I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Aveune. Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going."

There is a school of literary criticism that holds to the belief that black women writers are doubly discriminated against in their quest for intellectual recogniti...more [This review first appeared in Imprint, University of Waterloo, June 26, 1992]

"Sth, I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Aveune. Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going."

There is a school of literary criticism that holds to the belief that black women writers are doubly discriminated against in their quest for intellectual recognition. They are, it is said, excluded from the discussions that determine academic excellence first because women's experiences are generally devalued in our culture, and second because white people simply don't try hard enough to understand black people.

Toni Morrison is one of the few writers, along with Alice Walker, to have broken through this cultural barrier. She won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for her novel Beloved and has just released Jazz to somewhat confused critical acclaim. Affirming the notion that institutions of power are unable to understand marginal voices, Time magazine's review of Jazz praised Morrison's literary ability while confessing not to understand her purpose.

The novel's plot is contained in its first sentences, quoted above. Simply put, the novel is about a couple who grow apart as they grow old. He takes a young lover, who leaves him. He kills his lover. Life goes on, somewhat like before. But also radically different. The novel concentrates on its characters, not its plot. It tells us in deeply drawn strokes each individual's quirks and fantasies, and after a while it is difficult to discern the victims from the offenders. Everyone is hurting, everyone is looking for redemption.

Likely this is not what you'd expect from a novel about a love triangle and a murder. But Morrison's point is that there are not easy answers, the roots of the problem run deep. The symptoms may be obvious, but the causes are certainly not. Jazz explores (as a Charlie Parker solo explores; it wanders, but always to the right place) the depth of this theme, celebrating human connections at the same time as it points out the consequences of their failings.

Love's connections may be frail, Morrison is saying, and they are often the cause of much pain and anguish, but they are also life's strongest bonds. Jazz plays with this paradox. The purpose of the novel, then, is simple. Jazz is jazz. That is all. Nothing more, nothing less. And as Louis Armstrong once said, "If you have to ask what's jazz, you'll never know."

As a cultural phenomena, the novel deserves to be discussed within the context of contemporary race and gender relations. A novel about black people in Harlem in the 1920s, Jazz speaks the voices of the marginalized people who feel they've moved up in the world. The readers, however, who know how hollow these dreams of 70 years ago are, can see the tragedy in the characters' ambitions. Just as they can see how little has changed with regards to violence against women.

But Jazz is not an overtly political novel, though in a completely subversive way the novel points out the commonalities that bind all people. These are the connections of emotion, the need to be loved, understood and wanted. And though these connections function on the level of individuals, they are also symptomatic of our culture as a whole.

Says one character: "All kinds of white people are there. Two kinds. The ones that feel sorry for you and the ones that don't. And both amount to the same thing. Nowhere in between is respect." (less)

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Jul 18, 2011 J rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010

(FROM JACKET) It is winter, barely three days into 1926, seven years after Armistice; we are in the scintillating City, around Lenox Avenue, "when all wars are over and there will never be another one...At least, at last, everything's ahead...Here comes the new. Look out. There goes the sad stuff. The bad stuff. The things-nobody-could-help stuff." But amid the euphoric decisiveness, a tragedy ensues among people who had train-danced into the City, from points south adn west, in search of promis...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Meg rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I fell in love with Toni Morrison in high school. I was in France--- and my future English teacher gave me a list of books to read in preparation for AP English my senior year. I was HUNGRY for literature in English....and devoured Song of Solomon. Loved that book. And I loved The Bluest Eye....and then in college Beloved. I did not love Sula....and I did not love this book. Fifty pages in and the only reason I stuck with the book was because it was written by Toni Morrison.

The writing is dry.....more

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Jun 05, 2012 Jasmine Star rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Jasmine Star by: I borrowed it from Joshuah

Not sure why, but this is my least favorite Morrison novel so far.

As always, I have many positive things to say about the writing. Morrison has an amazing way of expressing romance and whimsy even in the most uncomfortable situations. There was some amazing writing in this story. Some lines were so deep I stared at them for a while before moving on. The characters' memories hold a lot depth and make you hungry for the rest of the story. Therein lies the problem.

I found the story to be so caugh...more

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Jan 07, 2013 Holly rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: women-s-novels

SPOILERS

Overview: Joe Trace is a middle aged married man (Violet, wife) who has an affair with an 18 year old Dorkas and shoots her over anguish of her breaking up with him.

Characters: The first half of the book looked at Violet and touched on the affair and general growing up aspects in what I would call a simple to read type writing. However, the second half of the book was almost written by a different author. I actually had to read 10% of the book again because I had difficulty understandin...more

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May 18, 2011 Annie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jazz is the story of a couple living in Harlem during the Jazz Age, and by the "Jazz Age" I don't mean F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jazz Age--it is anything but that. Joe and Violet's relationship is virtually falling apart, due to some adultery and murder, which makes for a juicy start to the story. Morrison then takes us on a journey back a few generations, where we see that Joe and Violet's stormy relationship is the cause of generations worth of disfunction. It's a fascinating study of "the sins of...more

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Nov 17, 2012 Amber rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"I laughed but before I could agree with the hairdressers that she was crazy, she said, 'What's the world for if you can't make it up the way you want it?'
"'The way I want it?'
"'Yeah. The way you want it. Don't you want it to be something more than what it is?'
"'What's the point? I can't change it.'
"'That's the point. If you don't, it will change you and it'll be your fault cause you let it. I let it. And messed up my life.'
"'Messed it up how?'
"'Forgot it.'
"'Forgot?'
"'Forgot it was mine. My life...more

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May 10, 2011 Lilly B rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read

(possible spoilers below)

But I can’t say that aloud; I can’t tell anyone that I have been waiting for this all my life and that being chosen to wait is the reason I can. If I were able I’d say it. Say make me, remake me. You are free to do it and I am free to let you because look, look. Look where your hands are. Now.

This is my favorite quote from Jazz. Morrison is one of my favorite authors, but the thing I like most about Jazz is its interesting way of handling voices, language, characters an...more

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Aug 06, 2010 Angie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a sad tale of love, revenge, heartache and tragedy soulfully told by the expert word-smith Morrison whose prose just seems to lap over me like water. I absolutely love her writing and it has a sing-song quality which suits the period in this novel, the era of early jazz, which is appealing to me. She can set the tone of her backdrops so evocatively in very few words. The musical quality of her prose suits the storyline in this novel very well. This is the third Morrison book I have read...more This is a sad tale of love, revenge, heartache and tragedy soulfully told by the expert word-smith Morrison whose prose just seems to lap over me like water. I absolutely love her writing and it has a sing-song quality which suits the period in this novel, the era of early jazz, which is appealing to me. She can set the tone of her backdrops so evocatively in very few words. The musical quality of her prose suits the storyline in this novel very well. This is the third Morrison book I have read following Song of Solomon and Beloved. This book is up there with them but is an easier read than Beloved which seemed very dense, brilliant and intense throughout. The effectiveness in this one is its simplicity, a few carefully chosen succinct words which paint the canvas containing all the elements of light and shade you need to feel the heart of the characters in this story, the history that bought them to the big city and how it has forged their lives. The story is one which links together a childless poor couple, Violet and Joe, in their early 50's and Joe's illicit love for a young girl, Dorcas, and the tragic events which follow their affair.

Here are some wonderful examples from the book:

‘Daylight slants like a razor cutting the buildings in half. In the top half I see looking faces and it’s not easy to tell which are people, which the work of stonemasons. Below is shadow where any blasé thing takes place: clarinets and lovemaking, makes me dream tall and feel in on things. Hep, it’s the bright steel rocking above the shade below that does it. When I look into the cream-and-copper halls of apartment buildings, I’m strong. Alone, yes, but top-notch and indestructible – like the City in 1926 when all the wars are over and there will never be another one. The people down there in the shadow are happy about that. At last, at last, everything’s ahead.'

‘It’s nice when grown people whisper to each other under the covers. Their ecstasy is more leaf-sigh than bray and the body is the vehicle, not the point. They reach, grown people, for something beyond, way beyond and way, way down underneath tissue. They are remembering while they whisper the carnival dolls they won and the Baltimore boats they never sailed on.‘

‘Breathing and murmuring under covers both of them have washed and hung out on the line, in a bed they chose together and kept together nevermind one leg was propped on a 1916 dictionary, and the mattress, curved like a preacher’s palm asking for witnesses in His name’s sake, enclosed them each and every night and muffled their whispering, old-time love.‘

‘I envy them their public love. I myself have only known it in secret, shared it in secret and longed, aw longed to show it – to be able to say out loud what they have no need to say at all: That I have loved only you, surrendered my whole self reckless to you and nobody else. That I want you to love me back and show it to me. That I love the way you hold me, how close you let me be to you. I like your fingers on and on, lifting, turning. I have watched your face for a long time now, and missed your eyes when you went away from me. Talking to you and hearing the answer – that’s the kick.‘

Gorgeous stuff from Morrison and again, to be recommended.
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Jun 13, 2011 Brittney rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An affair, murder, violence, loss and love are all themes Toni Morrison blends with the skill of a musician in Jazz. Published in 1992, the novel took place in the 1920s, in the prime era of jazz. Joe Trace, a door-to-door cosmetics salesman has an affair with Dorcas, a young girl who thrives on attention and affection. In a fit of jealousy, Joe kills Dorcas, who will not speak or see him anymore. At the young girl's funeral, Joe's wife, Violet, is overtaken by another being she terms that girl

...more

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Nov 14, 2010 Stasha rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'm really intrigued by life in 1920s America, so I thought that this book was right up my alley. It started out nicely, but eventually, I got tired of not seeing any conversation at the beginning of the novel. I suppose it was the writer's intention to be as descriptive as possible.Later on though, I realised that the narrator of the story was never mentioned,which kind of put me off, because they were observing and recalling the whole situation from a witness's point of view.At one point, I ev...more

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Feb 27, 2013 Ariadna73 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Check out what I wrote in my blog: http://lunairereadings.blogspot.com/2...

I will never forget the beauty of this book that starts with the statement that the heroine was an ugly young girl. She was young and ugly; and started to sleep with this old and disgusting married man that finally got obsessed with her and ended up wounding her on the shoulder with a small firearm. She didn't want anything to do with him and she decided that it was better to die than to give up; so she let herself bleed...more

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About Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison (born Chloe Anthony Wofford), is an American author, editor, and professor who won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature for being an author "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality."
Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed African American characters; among the best k...more

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Trivia About Jazz

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Quotes from Jazz

“Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.” — 323 people liked it

“Pain. I seem to have an affection, a kind of sweettooth for it. Bolts of lightning, little rivulets of thunder.
And I the eye of the storm.” — 70 people liked it

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avg rating	preview: Jazz Goodreads rating: 3.70 (9380 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11341.Jazz?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320550473l/11341.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11341.Jazz?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Jazz by Toni Morrison[/url]

Jazz

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