Jazz
London: Chatto & Windus, 1992. First Edition. First British edition, first printing, 8vo, pp. 229. Publisher's black cloth with gilt titles to spine, color dust jacket designed by R.D. Scudellari. Lightly faded spine with some foxing to the top edge, very good. Item #1386
Morrison's sixth novel and the second in her trilogy, following Beloved and preceding Paradise, set in Harlem during the 1920s and structured around the music that defined the era. The narrative opens with pure sound and never fully abandons it, Morrison having set herself the task not of writing about jazz but of writing like it, achieving what she described as a manifestation of the music's intellect, sensuality, and anarchy. Reportedly her own favorite among her novels, Jazz was published the year before she received the Nobel Prize in Literature. You should read this because Morrison attempted something that should not have been possible in prose, and largely succeeded.
Price: $35.00