From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner, a passionate, profound story of love and obsession based on the hopes, fears, and deep realities of Black urban life. With a foreword by the author.

"As rich in themes and poetic images as her Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved.... Morrison conjures up the hand of slavery on Harlem's jazz generation. The more you listen, the more you crave to hear." --Glamour

In the winter of 1926, when everybody everywhere sees nothing but good things ahead, Joe Trace, middle-aged door-to-door salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe's wife, Violet, attacks the girl's corpse.

"Transforms a familiar refrain of jilted love into a bold, sustaining time of self-knowledge and discovery. Its rhythms are infectious." --People