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Summary
Summary
WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD and A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A finalist for the Kirkus Prize, Andrew Carnegie Medal, Aspen Words Literary Prize, and a New York Times bestseller, this majestic, stirring, and widely praised novel from two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward, the story of a family on a journey through rural Mississippi, is a "tour de force" ( O, the Oprah Magazine ) and a timeless work of fiction that is destined to become a classic.
Jesmyn Ward's historic second National Book Award-winner is "perfectly poised for the moment" ( The New York Times ), an intimate portrait of three generations of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. "Ward's writing throbs with life, grief, and love... this book is the kind that makes you ache to return to it" ( Buzzfeed ).
Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesn't lack in fathers to study, chief among them his Black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent White father, Michael, who is being released from prison; his absent White grandfather, Big Joseph, who won't acknowledge his existence; and the memories of his dead uncle, Given, who died as a teenager.
His mother, Leonie, is an inconsistent presence in his and his toddler sister's lives. She is an imperfect mother in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is Black and her children's father is White. She wants to be a better mother but can't put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. Simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she's high, Leonie is embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances.
When the children's father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another thirteen-year-old boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love.
Rich with Ward's distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic and unforgettable family story and "an odyssey through rural Mississippi's past and present" ( The Philadelphia Inquirer ).
Author Notes
Jesmyn Ward was born in DeLisle, Mississippi in 1977. She became a writer after the death of her brother by a drunk driver. She received a MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan. Her books include the novel Where the Line Bleeds, the memoir Men We Reaped, and the nonfiction work The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race. Salvage the Bones won the National Book Award in Fiction in 2011 and an Alex Award in 2012. Sing, Unburied, Sing won the National Book Award in Fiction in 2017. She taught at University of New Orleans, the University of South Alabama, and Tulane University.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A trio of performers demonstrate their considerable vocal talents in the audio edition of the latest from National Book Award-winner Ward (for Salvage the Bones). The novel's multithreaded structure may take a bit of time for listeners to grasp, particularly given that one of the three narrators is the ghost of Richie, a teen prisoner who was murdered many decades earlier. The other two protagonists-a 13-year-old boy named Jojo and his drug-addicted mother, Leonie-interact with both the living and the dead in their daily lives in a narrative that links past racial violence with a current family crisis. The elements eventually meld together seamlessly. Jojo's lingering sense of innocence and earnestness on the cusp of manhood shines through in the gentle cadence of Harrison's voice. Actor Wesley brings both edge and vulnerability to her smoky-voiced portrayal of Leonie. The listening experience requires attention to detail, but the solid performances are a great match for the material. A Scribner hardcover. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
New York Review of Books Review
THE EVOLUTION OF BEAUTY: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World - and Us, by Richard 0. Prum. (Doubleday, $30.) A mild-mannered ornithologist makes an impassioned case for the importance of Darwin's second theory as his most radical and feminist. COMING TO MY SENSES: The Making of a Counterculture Cook, by Alice Waters with Cristina Mueller and Bob Carrau. (Clarkson Potter, $27.) The founder of Chez Panisse describes her early days, explaining how a visit to France awakened her interest in excellent food and how she came to embrace the use of organic ingredients. FASTING AND FEASTING: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray, by Adam Federman. (Chelsea Green, $25.) Federman's biography is the first of a cult food writer who became famous with the 1986 publication of her influential book "Honey From a Weed." SING, UNBURIED, SING, by Jesmyn Ward. (Scribner, $26.) In her follow-up to the National Book Award-winning novel "Salvage the Bones," Ward tells the story of a Mississippi woman intent on making her fractured family whole again. THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1898, by Richard White. (Oxford, $35.) This sweeping history of the decades after the Civil War decries the spoliations White sees everywhere among Robber Barons and corrupt politicians. THE INTERNATIONALISTS: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World, by Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro. (Simon & Schuster, $30.) The two authors argue for the historic importance of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, an international agreement usually dismissed by historians as ineffectual and quixotic. In their revisionist view, the pact "reshaped the world map" and "catalyzed the human rights revolution." RESET: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, by Ellen K. Pao. (Spiegel & Grau, $28.) Combining memoir, self-help, tell-all and manifesto, Pao recalls the disillusionment that led her to sue a venture capital firm for gender discrimination. She lost, but showed the hurdles women still face in many fields. THE MISFORTUNE OF MARION PALM, by Emily Culliton. (Knopf, $25.95.) In Culliton's delightful and sneakily feminist debut novel, a Brooklyn mother is on the lam after embezzling thousands of dollars from her daughters' private school. BONES: Brothers, Horses, Cartels, and the Borderland Dream, by Joe Tone. (One World, $28.) A reporter brilliantly recounts the tale of a Texas bricklayer who laundered drug money for his brother, a cartel boss in Mexico, via the horse-racing industry. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Library Journal Review
In her second National Book Award (NBA)--winning title, Ward returns to Bois Sauvage, MS, where her first NBA winner, Salvage the Bones, played out. Bones' Skeetah and Eschelle appear momentarily here. Jojo, 13, and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their black grandparents. Their drug-addicted mother Leonie is mostly absent, until she returns announcing a road trip to collect their white father from prison. The epic journey lays bare racial, societal, and familial divides, revealing a tragic landscape still struggling with the horrific legacy of enslavement and privilege. A trio of newbie narrators make audacious debuts; each is superb. Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Jojo is old before his time as Kayla's protector. -Rutina Wesley as Leonie achingly inhabits the limbo between desperate and determined. Chris Chalk as Richie-who slips into the car on the return ride-is caught between brash and lost. With such talent, the production should have been pitch-perfect, but the jarring disconnect among narrators when voicing the same characters in their separate chapters-Harrison's Jojo, for example, is impossibly patient; Wesley's Jojo sounds unnecessarily surly-mars a potentially spectacular performance. VERDICT Directing flaws aside, libraries will want to satisfy eager literature lovers with all available formats. ["Lyrical yet tough, Ward's distilled language effectively captures the hard lives, fraught relationships, and spiritual depth of her characters": LJ 5/15/2017 starred review of the Scribner hc.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.