Previous
The Woman/Wild
Henry Lestory (known to most Vienna residents as Hunter’s Hunter) is Golden Gray’s father and Joe’s mentor. Henry is the most respected animal tracker in the area, and he is used to being accorded respect by locals like Joe, Honor, and Victory. He has little tolerance, therefore, for Golden’s racialized arrogance, insisting that “a son ain’t what a woman say. A son is what a man do.” Henry helps Wild through her difficult pregnancy, and he later hints to Joe that Wild is Joe’s real mother—even as he tries to manage Joe’s expectations around this fact. Towards the end of the narrative, when Joe begins tracking Dorcas down, he is often reminded of Hunter’s advice about what is and is not meant to be “prey.”
Henry Lestory/Hunter’s Hunter Quotes in Jazz
The Jazz quotes below are all either spoken by Henry Lestory/Hunter’s Hunter or refer to Henry Lestory/Hunter’s Hunter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5
Quotes
I tracked my mother in Virginia and it led me right to her, and I tracked Dorcas from borough to borough. I didn't even have to work at it. Didn't even have to think. Something else takes over when the track begins to talk to you, give out its signs so strong you hardly have to look […] If the trail speaks, no matter what’s in the way, you can find yourself in a crowded room aiming a bullet at her heart, never mind it’s the heart you can't live without […]
I wasn't looking for the trail. It was looking for me and when it started talking at first I couldn’t hear it. I was rambling, just rambling all through the city. I had the gun but it was not the gun—it was my hand I wanted to touch you with.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6
Quotes
[Golden thought of] the woman who cooked and cleaned for Vera Louise; who sent baskets of plum preserves, ham and loaves of bread every week while he was in boarding school; who gave his frayed shirts to rag and bone men rather than let him wear them; the woman who smiled and shook her head every time she looked at him. […] When the two of them, the whitewoman and the cook, bathed him they sometimes passed anxious looks at the palms of his hand, the texture of his drying hair. Well, Vera Louise was anxious, True Belle just smiled, and now he knew what she was smiling about, that nigger. But so was he. He had always thought there was only one kind—True Belle’s kind. Black and nothing. Like Henry Lestory. Like the filthy woman snoring on the cot. But there was another kind—like himself.
What was I thinking of? How could I have imagined him so poorly? Not notice the hurt that was not linked to the color of his skin, or the blood that beat beneath it. But to some other thing that longed for authenticity, for a right to be in this place, effortlessly without needing to acquire a false face, a laughless grin, a talking posture. I have been careless and stupid and it infuriates me to discover (again) how unreliable I am.
Get the entire Jazz LitChart as a printable PDF.
Henry Lestory/Hunter’s Hunter Quotes in Jazz
The Jazz quotes below are all either spoken by Henry Lestory/Hunter’s Hunter or refer to Henry Lestory/Hunter’s Hunter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5
Quotes
I tracked my mother in Virginia and it led me right to her, and I tracked Dorcas from borough to borough. I didn't even have to work at it. Didn't even have to think. Something else takes over when the track begins to talk to you, give out its signs so strong you hardly have to look […] If the trail speaks, no matter what’s in the way, you can find yourself in a crowded room aiming a bullet at her heart, never mind it’s the heart you can't live without […]
I wasn't looking for the trail. It was looking for me and when it started talking at first I couldn’t hear it. I was rambling, just rambling all through the city. I had the gun but it was not the gun—it was my hand I wanted to touch you with.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6
Quotes
[Golden thought of] the woman who cooked and cleaned for Vera Louise; who sent baskets of plum preserves, ham and loaves of bread every week while he was in boarding school; who gave his frayed shirts to rag and bone men rather than let him wear them; the woman who smiled and shook her head every time she looked at him. […] When the two of them, the whitewoman and the cook, bathed him they sometimes passed anxious looks at the palms of his hand, the texture of his drying hair. Well, Vera Louise was anxious, True Belle just smiled, and now he knew what she was smiling about, that nigger. But so was he. He had always thought there was only one kind—True Belle’s kind. Black and nothing. Like Henry Lestory. Like the filthy woman snoring on the cot. But there was another kind—like himself.
What was I thinking of? How could I have imagined him so poorly? Not notice the hurt that was not linked to the color of his skin, or the blood that beat beneath it. But to some other thing that longed for authenticity, for a right to be in this place, effortlessly without needing to acquire a false face, a laughless grin, a talking posture. I have been careless and stupid and it infuriates me to discover (again) how unreliable I am.
