Home to Harlem

Jake Brown, a World War I army deserter, is one of the protagonists of Claude McKay's novel Home to Harlem. When he leaves London and returns to New York, Jake gets entangled in the seedy side of Harlem life – prostitutes, clubs, and gambling halls. He reunites briefly with a former war buddy, Zeddy Plummer, and later befriends a Haitian immigrant named Ray while they are both working on a train. The novel explores the plight of young Black men in the early twentieth century in America, and was both applauded and criticized for its sensual, brutal honesty of its portrayal of urban life.