851. Jazz

Jazz
Toni Morrison
1992
Around 230 pages

We've finally arrived at our last Toni Morrison novel! She's one of those authors who I always need to space out, because her works hurt my heart so much that I need breaks to recover. Always poetic, and always tugging on my heartstrings and causing me severe chest pains. So without further ado, here is my official Morrison ranking:

1. Beloved

2. The Bluest Eye

3. Jazz

4. Sula

5. Song of Solomon

This one might not be leading the pack, but that's just because those first two were so good. It's winter in 1920s Harlem. Joe Trace a fifty-year-old salesman shoots his lover to death, the eighteen-year-old Dorcas. At the funeral, his wife Violet tries to disfigure the corpse with a knife. We learn about the characters' odd behaviors that led up to these moments.

I'm still conflicted about the ending. Like most of Morrison's characters, this group had been dealt a very hard hand, but I still had trouble sympathizing with Joe and his mommy issues. I enjoyed the setting and incorporation of jazz music into the story. I would have preferred a much more cosmically just conclusion to Joe's story, but I understand where Morrison was going with the themes of redemption and letting the past go. And Dorcas never having a voice fits pretty well as she represents the sexualized and silenced women of the time.

I'll miss you Toni, even though I'll probably experience less heartache without you.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Won the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prize.

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