Jazz Summary

It’s winter 1926 in Harlem, and un unnamed narrator is gossiping about her neighbors, a married couple named Joe and Violet Trace. Joe has been having an affair with a much younger woman named Dorcas, until, in a moment of jealousy, he shoots and kills her. A few weeks later, Violet shows up—uninvited—to Dorcas’ funeral, and tries to stab the dead girl in the face. After the funeral, Violet returns home, where she lets all of her birds out of their cages. Every night, she and Joe sneak out of bed to look at the framed photo of Dorcas on their mantel. The narrator predicts that soon, another murder will occur.

The narrator jumps back to before the murder. Violet, a hairdresser, had been behaving strangely. One time, she sat down, inexplicably, in the middle of the street; another time, she held someone else’s baby for so long that people accused her of kidnapping. Joe, unaware of this strange behavior, was busy renting a room from his neighbor Malvonne. Joe and Dorcas would meet often in this room to talk and have sex. Joe, who sells Cleopatra beauty products, would use this time to shower Dorcas with presents.

Now, the story rewinds to 1917, when a group of Black protestors march up Fifth Avenue to oppose the horrific racial violence of the East St. Louis massacre. Alice Manfred has lost her sister and brother-in-law in the massacre, making her responsible for her orphaned young niece, Dorcas. Alice is terrified by the constant racism she experiences, even in the relatively prosperous Black enclave of Harlem; she hopes to protect her niece with strict rules, banning the makeup and jazz that she thinks makes people do “unwise disorderly things.” Privately, though, Alice admires jazz’s “appetite” and “complicated anger.”

Dorcas, having seen her childhood home set on fire with her mother inside of it, ignores her aunt’s rules, wanting to be “bold.” Dorcas craves sex above all, and by the time she is a teenager, she is often sneaking out to parties with her best friend Felice. At one of these house parties, Dorcas sees two handsome brothers dancing in the center of the living room. Dorcas is excited to dance with the brothers, but they wrinkle their nose at her.

Back in 1926, Violet keeps trying to talk to Alice Manfred. Alice initially refuses to let Violet in, but eventually her curiosity gets the better of her, and the two women strike up a strange friendship. Alice makes tea and patches Violet’s clothes, and Violet talks about her complicated feelings towards Joe. Alice keeps quiet about her own painful experience, many years ago, with an unfaithful husband.

Violet thinks back to her youth in Vesper County, Virginia. When Violet was a little girl, all of her family’s belongings (including their home) were seized, prompting her mother Rose Dear to lose her grip on sanity. The only way Violet survived was because her grandmother True Belle returned from Baltimore to care for the children. Four years after True Belle arrived, Rose Dear threw herself down a well.

Hoping to escape the painful memories of her mother, Violet went to the nearby town of Palestine, where she met Joe Trace. From the first moment she met Joe, Violet wanted this man to be her husband. Eventually, Joe and Violet headed to New York City, falling in love with the big buildings and bustling energy. They had agreed on not wanting children, but as she got older, Violet started falling asleep with a doll in her arms, a sign to Joe that maybe she wanted a baby after all.

Back in the present, winter turns into spring, but Joe still does nothing except cry over Dorcas. The narrator muses that Joe seems nice, but in reality, he is lecherous and resentful; she thinks his affair with Dorcas was inevitable, and that Joe is a broken record “bound to the track.”

Joe takes over the narrative, describing his childhood in Vesper County. Joe never knew his parents, though he found a surrogate family and a best friend named Victory. As children, Joe and Victory worked with the best hunter in their town, a tracker named Henry Lestory (whom everyone called Hunter’s Hunter). In 1906, Joe moved to New York with Violet, and eventually they found their way to Harlem. Their life there was mostly peaceful, though in 1917, Joe was randomly attacked by a vicious group of white people. A few years later, Joe fell for Dorcas, cherishing her acne and trying to overlook her interest in younger men. Dorcas felt like the first real decision Joe had ever made.

The narrator now imagines herself into True Belle’s life. True Belle worked for a white woman named Vera Louise. As a teenager, Vera got pregnant with an enslaved Black man (later revealed to be Henry Lestory); her family kicked her out, and Vera went to live in Baltimore, forcing True Belle to come with her. Vera had her baby, naming him Golden Gray because of his golden hair color and bronze skin. In Golden’s youth, Vera and True Belle spent all their time doting on the young child.

After years of believing he was white, Golden eventually learned the truth about his father and set out to meet Henry in the flesh. While on the way, Golden stumbled upon an injured pregnant woman. At first, he hesitated to help the woman (largely because she is Black), but Golden finally decided to bring her back to Henry’s small cabin, where he covered her with a green dress. Henry came home, and Golden explained who he is. The woman, known only as Wild, then went into labor.

As a child, Hunter hinted to Joe that Wild, now a haunting legend for the townspeople, is his true mother. Joe searched for Wild several times, even after white people burn his village to the ground, but Wild never identifies herself as his mother. Joe then recalls the day he hunted Dorcas down, holding a gun not because he meant to harm her but because that is how Hunter had taught him to “track” people down.

The narrative shifts perspective once again, as Dorcas describes dancing at a party with her arrogant new lover Acton. Hazily, Dorcas recalls Joe’s arrival at the party. Before she understands what is happening, Dorcas is on the floor, mumbling something to Felice. Music plays in the background as Dorcas, having been shot, loses consciousness and dies.

Now, Felice tells her story. She was raised by her grandmother while her parents worked far away; her friendship with Dorcas was the most exciting part of her life. Several months after the funeral, while trying to retrieve a ring Dorcas had borrowed, Felice ends up at the Trace household. To her surprise, Felice likes Violet and Joe, and she respects how tender they are to each other. The strange trio starts spending time together, making dinners and dancing. Violet gets another bird, and she brings it to the roof to hear jazz.

The narrator is frustrated with herself for being so wrong about Joe and Violet. She had thought “that the past was an abused record with no choice but to repeat itself,” but now she realizes that people are “original, complicated, changeable—human.” The narrator watches Joe and Violet visit locations around New York City together, and she wishes she had left her house more often. Maybe then, she too could have this kind of “public love.”