Jake, Jake Brown

Jake is the main character of the story. Jake is a fairly young man who enlists in the US Army but deserts during World War I. He returns to his old haunts in Harlem, New York after the war. Jake is a tall and attractive black man who has lots of success with women. He could try to have a woman support him, but insists on working always. Even after Jake leaves Congo Rose, he has many lovers in towns along the railroad. Still, Jake yearns for a full-time lover such as the long-lost brown woman. Jake is not educated and is a manual worker, first as a longshoreman and later as a cook in a dining car. His attraction to the long-lost brown woman, Felice, is not based on intellectual qualities, but on special sensual effects that she creates in him. Jake lives a wild...