Claude McKay's novel, written in the 1930s but unpublished until 2020, follows Lafala, a West African sailor who loses both legs after being denied care as a stowaway and wins a lawsuit that briefly makes him wealthy. With his settlement money, Lafala returns to Marseille, where he had experienced freedom and pleasure as an able-bodied seaman, seeking to reclaim joy in a changed body. McKay, a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, renders the demimonde of Marseille's waterfront district with vivid attention to its multiracial cast of sex workers, sailors, and hustlers. The novel explores disability, desire, and Black life in Europe between the wars, themes that may have made it unpublishable in McKay's lifetime. Lafala's attempt to maintain dignity and find love despite his disability and the racism he faces drives a narrative that is by turns celebratory and melancholy. McKay writes about sexuality and bodies with frankness unusual for his era, depicting characters who find pleasure and connection across differences of race and ability. The novel's publication adds an important work to the Harlem Renaissance canon, revealing how one of the movement's major figures addressed themes largely absent from his published oeuvre.