This is a beautifully written, complex story of slavery in America. It is not an easy read as all the cruelties and despair are present, describing slavery.

The subject matter is chilling but the writing elevates the story. Using the main character brings a very personal element to the experience of being trapped in an ugly system.

I'm not sure adding an element of mysticism was beneficial but it didn't detract from the book.

I highly recommend this thought provoking, well crafted book.

Now I get it. I’ve tried to read Ward before, and didn’t succeed in warming to her poetic voice and impassioned content. But this time, we clicked. This is a full, fearless and compelling tale, assembled with confidence and technical brilliance. Others say that we are familiar with the content, but I found its portrait of slavery more intense and terrible than others I’ve read. More pitiless, more quotidianly cruel and complete.
Ward also manages to dodge many - but not all - predictabilities.
Did I like the spiritual dimension? Not all the time, but I applaud the use of it. And the Dante parallel. I’ll be recommending this one

How to review this fabulous, devastating, brutal, powerful, heart-wrenching book?

A "reimagining of American slavery"--from the rice fields of the Carolinas, to the slave markets of New Orleans, to a Louisiana sugar plantation.

"Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take."

The details are gruesome--well--it is about people being sold, marched in bondage, and then forced to work in horrific conditions. As awful as these parts were [and they were! ] "liked?" them better than the many parts of magical realism--the spirit Aza. Much symbolism--especially water [rebirth?] And bees.

The story is told in Annis' voice. There are memories of her mother and the stories she was told by her mother concerning her [warrior] grandmother.

Struggle, loneliness, grief, friendship, depravity, inhumanity, fear, and ultimately resolve and hope.

The prose is beautiful and the descriptions so vivid:
"My sire... appraises me in the same way he studies his horses..."
The plantation--the house "a columned building that rises skyward, elegant and vicious as an ornamental blade"
"We weed until the sun collects all the color from the day , and the night pours over the sky"
"Esther laughs and there is no light in it."

New words:
tignon, coffle chitinous

Highly recommend, but be prepared for being a witness to the heartlessness of slavery.

4.5

What a powerful story! Annis, a young slave girl, is sold and makes a harrowing journey South to New Orleans. The author portrays this travel realistically and horrifically. Throughout the journey, being roped to other women, Annis finds strength from the spirit of the wind who takes on the persona of her grandmother and from the stories and traditions of her ancestors that her mother told her when she was a child. Annis faces trial after trial in the house in New Orleans and the spirits of the water and earth come to her to give her guidance but can also add confusion.
Ward portrays the life in slavery graphically and the violence is throughout the book. However, in the midst is the strength and resolve of Annis who must learn to follow her own path. She does so with courage and determination.
Highly recommend to all those interested in the personal story of slavery.

Thank you, NetGalley for early access to the ebook.

This was a beautiful, heartbreaking, painful read. Jesmyn Ward’s writing was so impactful and emotional. I felt the pain of the characters, the hopelessness at times, the determination. It was really well done.

I don’t have a lot of experience with magical realism, so this next part may be due to that, but I found some of the magical/spiritual elements confusing and occasionally hard to follow. I did love the concept, just struggled with the execution at some points.

Overall, I highly recommend this book.

It has been a few days since I finished Let Us Descend and I have not stopped thinking about it. In a time where the "white" washing of history to include the idea that Black's benefited from slavery... well, this book shows those ideas as foolish lies, which they are.

The writing is brilliant, painful, heart wrenching... we follow a young Annis as her life is horrifically turned upside down. Yet, in the midst of this journey... there is determination and yes, even hope. I have a new understanding of the value and importance that The Ancestor's play in Black lives... and why they are still talked about today.

This was not an easy book to read but it is a necessary read for all of us. We cannot change the past, but we can acknowledge it ... and acknowledge our part in it.

I highly recommend this book!

I would like to thank Netgalley and Scribner for the copy of this book. I would like to also thank Ms. Ward for writing this brilliant novel. It will be published October 24, 2023.

This is extremely well-written, and continuously harrowing. The problem is that I read during meals and before bed, and it’s too consistently distressing for me to read it then. This reminds me of Beloved. I won’t post a public review as I’ve not been able to finish it.

A beautiful and harrowing book - Jesmyn Ward is an amazing writer and this book is enthralling. Probably not for everyone, but I enjoyed the magical realism elements and the heroine.

This was such a beautiful, heartbreaking story of Annis - a sold young slave who must travel, chained up to other women, cross rivers and have a heartbreaking journey. I found her story sad and honest and hard.

I did not expect the magical realism aspect of this book though. I normally love that in books, but also not sure it worked in this one.

Definitely one worth the read!

I finished reading this novel a couple of weeks ago and I've been waiting to review it so that I can have some time to process it. As a caveat to this review, I'm a big fan of Jesmyn Ward's previous works, so I was already primed to enjoy this book, and enjoy it I did.

Her latest work here follows protagonist Annis through her experiences as an enslaved person in the South, which seems like such an understatement when you phrase it like that. This book does not hold back in its depiction of the brutality, cruelty, and evilness of slavery; at times the book was difficult to read due to the sheer tragedy and cruelty that the characters experienced but difficult does not mean bad in any way. I really enjoyed Ward's exploration of magical realism as a way for Annis to connect with spirits and the memories of her ancestors.

Beautiful prose, heartbreaking and bittersweet, Ward here manages to create a novel unlike anything I've ever read before. Highly recommended, I will be purchasing this for my personal library.

A horrific story with a contemporary take on the very worst part of our country. Annis learned to fight with weapons from her mother who also shares family folklore. Her mother is forcibly taken away from her, then she is made to leave with a group of slaves, all tightly tied together. They are given no food, very little water and have to jog at the same pace through treacherous terrain and climate. A very difficult read, fortunately it is not too long. I usually read to escape and entertain but felt it important to keep current on this topic. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Jesmyn Ward is a brilliant writer and national treasure. Ward can bring beauty to the most haunted and violent images. In Let Us Descend, she weaves a story of slavery, pre-Civil War as young, Annis fathered by her owner is sent to the slave market in New Orleans via her home in North Carolina.

It is a harrowing journey that is painful and vivid, and odyssey that we dread the eventual end. Annis is guided by her inner strength in the form of her African warrior-grandmother. She reflects on these stories of her and of her mother as she marches on. This is a journey like no other and sure to change you. A certain classic that all Americans should read.
#scribner #Jsemynward #LetusDescend

A true masterpiece and future classic. Ward is redefining a genre of southern writers and making it all her own with her scintillating, melodic, and heartbreaking voice. Her books always gut me and this one is no different.

Beautifully written but also very heavy handed and intentionally wrenching on a subject that I've already read extensively about. I found it extremely hard to read without it adding any new insight or theme to a traumatic piece of history. If you haven't read emotionally laden accounts of slavery much and want to hear the absolute worst of it, this is a great book for you.

Absolutely beautiful writing. This is the first thing I’ve read by Jesmyn Ward, but I’m going to have to look into more. She’s an absolute magician with words.

Jesmyn Ward is a master at creating images and evoking emotions. The grief is palpable throughout this novel as we follow Annis through losing so much. Ward forces readers to take a long look at slavery in the South and grapple with the implications and fallout of our history. It is also an incredibly moving depiction of ancestry and how our foremothers live with us. I will read anything Ward writes, even if it is devastating. She takes readers on necessary journeys that leave us all changed.

Thank you netgalley and scribner for giving me this ARC.

Annis and her beloved mother live under the tyranny of her father, a plantation owner in Carolina, They live and work and fight, snatching secret peace for themselves in each other and the moments they can be together away from the eyes of their tormentors, until the day that Annis's mother is sold south away from her daughter. Left with memories, stories of her family, the spirits that follow, annis herself is then sent on the same harrowing journey shortly after her mother, and fights to survive.

This book is a masterwork. I really dont think there is a better way to describe it. It stitches the stories of a familial line in tragedy to those of an epic poem and seamlessly integrates magic and spirits into the plot. The cruelty, the strength that Annis embodies, the ragged edge of her loss is staggering, but so is her desire to live, to find her mother, to be overcome. There were some points with the spirit aza at the end that i found a little confusing, but the overall scope of the story was heart rendingly perfect. Read it immediately.

Beautifully written and as vivid a description of the horrors of slavery and the abuses the slaves suffered as you will ever read. The focus is Annis and her “ journey” so to speak from North Carolina to New Orleans to a sugar plantation in Louisiana. Ward invokes Dante’s journey into hell, and the comparison is apt.The agonies of her mother and grandmother are also central to the novel. Without divulging too much of the novel there was too much magical mysticism for me-essential to the novel but never a well received aspect of any novel for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC to review!
Rating (on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being excellent)
Quality of writing: 4
Pace: 3
Plot development: 3
Characters: 3
Enjoyability: 3
Ease of Reading: 3

Overall rating: 3 out of 5

This book is, not surprisingly, gorgeously written. It is also brutal (and this, too, is not at all surprising). The novel tells the harrowing story of Annis who is marched to New Orleans after her Mama is sold off. It is raw and gritty. Also featured are spirits who guide Annis in her journey. It is not at all an easy read, but it is certainly an important one. There's a bit too much magical realism for my personal taste in books but that portion of the novel is, of course, very well done.