Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Toni Morrison (1931–2019)

Toni Morrison, novelist, critic, Nobel laureate, has died at the age of eighty-eight. The New York Times has an obituary.

The final paragraphs of Morrison’s Jazz are one of my favorite things in all literature. Getting a kick from these paragraphs requires, really, reading all that precedes them. So I’ll share these paragraphs while preserving a mystery:


Toni Morrison, Jazz (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992).

Other Morrison posts
“Hi” vs. “hello” : Slow down and read : “Undercover whispers” : “Why not ghosts”

comments: 2

Geo-B said...

I often taught Jazz, and always ended with a reading of those lovely paragraphs. I had a friend at Random House and she said there was another editor at Random House I should meet, because she was going to be a big deal. I went downstairs and there was TM, truly a big deal.

Michael Leddy said...

Wow — what an experience to have had.

I too always read those paragraphs aloud, and I loved seeing students realize in the moment what’s going on there. Is it —? Well, look. Aha!