WITHIN THE FIRST few pages of Toni Morrison’s “Tar Baby,” a young black Floridian fugitive named Son jumps off the top deck of a cargo ship and into the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea—and off we go. Morrison’s fourth book, an unexpected, unforgettable love story, follows the roiling romance of Son and Jadine, a fashion model of “unhinging beauty.” Living between New York and Paris and educated at the Sorbonne, Jadine (or Jade) was raised by her aunt Ondine and uncle Sydney, a black couple from Baltimore and the longtime cook and butler, respectively, of a white entrepreneur, Valerian Street, and his wife, Margaret,...

Source: Wall Street Journal June 27, 2020 03:56 UTC