No one shreds your heart & writes pain as beautiful as this two time National Book Foundation award winner. Jesmyn Ward catapults the reader into the lives of her characters and stirs your soul with her poignant & elegant prose. Once you experience her greatness you will be forever mesmerized.

Jesmyn Ward is one of the most gifted writers of our time. The way she writes about contemporary, rural poverty and the complications that come along with it--alienation, addiction, illness and premature death--has so much weight and beauty. This story does a beautiful job of unveiling the effects of racial injustice--both past and present--in the lives of Black Americans in the rural South and painting complicated, robust characters. While I strongly recommend this book, it is quite a heavy read. Like many of Ward's previous works, It will leave readers with heavy hearts.

Jesmyn Ward's "Sing, Unburied, Sing" takes another step in establishing Ward as one of the great American writers of our time. 'Sing, Unburied, Sing" deserves a place in the new canon and should be required reading in many classrooms, as this is a telling of "The Odyssey" that is right on point for today's society.

Our protagonist Jojo is on the brink of manhood trying to discover who he is, despite having an absence of staple parental figures. His father is in jail, and his mother struggles with opioid addiction. Also prevalent throughout the novel is the theme of ghosts - the ones of magical realism and reality - and how that haunting affects our lives.

It's easy to understand how this book made so many "best of" lists in 2017.

This is an extremely important book and it more than deserves the accolades it has received thus far. I'm late in reviewing it but parts of it, particularly the parts about Jojo's mother, will stay with me for a very long time.

This book is weird and sad and gorgeously written and the alternating POVs didn’t bother me (although I am tired of books with them) because it told a complete story without feeling gimmicky. Some parts felt rushed or unnecessary or left me wanting more but this is one of those books where I’ll take what I can get. I loved how she dealt with racism without it feeling like a cause she was preaching about but rather the real, complex issue it is.

Leonie, mom, and Jojo, son, are telling their stories in this short, but impactful book. We look at their broken relationship and how it plays out in a short amount of time, during a road trip. We also look at the relationship they have with other family members in their household.

I'll be honest with you, this book brought me down a bit, but not in a bad way. It affected me in a way that I was heartbroken for Jojo, a teenage boy with a non-existent mother. He's at the age where he's discovering who he wants to be, which is hard when you're pretty much doing it with only a limited amount of guidance.

I also saw through Leoni's eyes what drug abuse can do to a person. There's a difference of the person you'd like to be, but can't because of an addiction you can't shake. This book centers on the themes of loss, drug addiction, parent-child relationships, and how the past can haunt you whether good or bad.

I'm not sure I'm doing a good job of describing this book. This was my first read by Jesmyn Ward. There's a distinct flow to her writing, where two perspectives can meld together as one. It was refreshing to read.

Sing, Unburied, Sing was a very difficult book for me to finish. For some reason, the writing style didn't go well with me - I had to take too many breaks before I could find the patience to sit through and complete the novel. Now, I don't mean it in a very negative way - it was a very beautiful book - I'm just super particular about the way a book is written over the actual plot/content. 

Coming to the story, the book focuses on Joseph "Jojo", a young boy who lives with his grandparents, his younger sister Kayla, his (drug addict) mother Leonie and his White father Michael. The story starts off by highlighting the personalities of the 'main' characters - the perspectives alternate between Jojo and Leonie with a few scenes told from the eyes of Richie, an acquaintance of Jojo's grandfather when he was in Parchman (kind of a prison). The plot kicks off with Michael being released from prison and Leonie, her White friend Misty and the kids go on a road trip to pick him up. 

Along the journey, the entire picture of the family, their hardships and their past are slowly revealed between Jojo and Leonie. We understand through Jojo about what his grandfather went through at Parchman - how the misery and torture faced by the inmates did not know Black or White and equally weighed them down. We're given a very realistic picture of the life of a Black family living in Mississippi. 

I must say, the characters were well developed. I liked how the stories were revealed eventually to create a beautiful but painful picture full of understanding, love and over everything, FAMILY. I thoroughly enjoyed the realistic tone of the story and completely understand why the writing style and dialogues had to be the way they were written. I would've probably enjoyed the book better if I wasn't so choosy about the writing style.

Overall, it was a beautiful book and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys a good family drama.

At this point, I have read this book, no less than three times. This book gets more moving with each read, and it is literally and figuratively haunting and I love and hate it all at the same damn time.

Ward introduces us to a family that is tucked between past and present. JoJo (Joseph) is a 13 year old boy who finds stability in his grandparents Mam and Pop. His mother, Leonie, is negligent and abusive to both JoJo and his 3 year old sister, Michaela (Kayla). On one of the rare occasions that Mam and Pop entrust Leonie with her children, she takes them on a statewide adventure across Mississippi to pick up their incarcerated father Michael, doing time for cooking, dealing and abusing methamphetamines. Leonie takes her children, along with her meth-head friend Misty, a trek that includes a stopover at a meth house, a hunger filled car ride, and her 13 year old son cowering on the wrong side of a police officer's gun.

The language in this novel is intense and urgent with elements of magical realism infused in a way that is highly emotional and raw. Ghosts Richie and Given haunt certain members of the family, but Jim Crow, poverty, the legacy of slavery, and the pervasiveness of modern anti-miscegenation vex the characters in this novel in ways that are profound and revelatory. The importance of names along with the critique on race relations in the new south is potent. Though there are so many hard truths and gut wrenching moments, there is also profound love, subtlety, and worlds beneath what is said and what is not.



Ward takes Parchman Farm, also known as the Mississippi State Penitentiary, and drags the dark secrets of its past into the illuminating present througb a series of characters all drastically affected by the place. Pop, a former felon who did hard time at Parchman in his youth, shares stories of a young inmate who left a lifelong mark on him. While serving hard time at the prison, he befriends a 12 year old prisoner named Richie who continues to haunt both Pop and Jojo. Michael, JoJo's father and lifelong love of Leonie, is a white man doing time at Parchman in the present day. Ward is brilliant at showing the generational effects of imprisonment and how that pain ripples throughout a family.

There aren't many novels today that capture drug addiction in a way that is humanizing, painful, honest and poetic. Leonie uses meth to regularly meet with her deceased brother, Given. Given is murdered and the thickness of the injustice surrounding his murder quietly complicates relations between Leonie's black family and Michael's white family. With heartbreaking prose, Ward describes Leonie's deep desire to please and be welcomed into Michael's family while at the same time being afraid of them.

The magical elements are critical to the story and are much in the traditions of Toni Morrison's Beloved. Here we have actual ghosts, with unresolved issues and stories to tell, but we also have the rituals of voodoo and the dark arts performed both by Mam and Pop, a way of bringing old world magic into solving today's problems. Whether it's the crafting of a gris gris bag for safety on a journey, or in the communication of animals, or the calling out of wounds, this book delves deep into the spiritual, with all of the members of this family possessing varying degrees of magic. Also particularly profound, was dehumanizing legacy left by slavery of people thinking of themselves and being devalued into animals. This reduction is not limited to black folks, Ward let's the children of slave masters share in the dehumanization.

Our discussion at the book club was lively. There was so much to talk about. All agreed that the book earned it's National Book Award. The discussion proved that is a lot of depth and many different ways to interpret the nuances of this book. i highly recommend this book for book discussions.

Sing, Unburied. Sing is perhaps my favorite book I've read this year. Ward's writing is compelling and moving, with some sentences and turns of phrase hitting hard. The story of Jojo and the ghosts that plague his family makes for an impactful work of fiction drawing on America's past and the present.

Jojo is used to his parents not being around. He is happy most days to live with his little sister Kayla and his grandparents. But when his dad is released from prison, his mother Leonie packs up the kids and takes them across Mississippi to bring him home. Sing, Unburied, Sing is the story of one family's attempts to reach each other, but it's also an examination of the ways history haunts us many generations later.

This book is gracing many best books of the year lists and it won the National Book Award. After so many glowing reviews, perhaps there isn't much for this reviewer to write. But I will add my voice to the chorus that says that Jesmyn Ward is one of the most excellent writers working today. She can evoke a powerful sense of place and history. She also writes characters so carefully--by the time the book is over, readers feel that they have truly gone through this journey with Jojo, held little Kayla when she's scared, and relived a painful past with Pop. Ward has written another beautiful, evocative, thought-provoking story; I'm so glad we get to experience her writing.

Sing, Unburied, Sing
By Jesmyn Ward
Scribner September 2017
285 pages
Read via Netgalley

Rating 4.5

What a powerful, beautiful, heartbreaking story that details love, hate, sadness, death, drugs, poverty, and racism. There is so much packed into this one and my thoughts are still with these characters. I thought this was a perfect example of Southern Gothic literature. Defined as follows:

Southern Gothic literature include deeply flawed, disturbing or eccentric characters who may or may not dabble in hoodoo, ambivalent gender roles, decayed or derelict settings, grotesque situations, and other sinister events relating to or stemming from poverty, alienation, crime, or violence.

I think that about sums it up. But on the story....Leonie is black and "mother" (using that word loosely here) to two bi-racial children, JoJo and Kayla. She doesn't love them, she loves getting high. But what she lives and breaths for is her boyfriend, and father to her children, Michael, who is white. She drags her children from the home they live in with Leonie's parents - Mam and Pop, to go get Michael as he is released from prison. You learn so much of each of these characters and how they are conflicted. My heart cried for JoJo, a 13 year old boy who takes care of his very young sister Kayla, trying to become a man, learning from Pop....but conflicted as he sees spirits. Pop, another conflicted soul who struggles every day. This one has ghosts weaved into the story with Mam and her daughter and her children able to see and sometimes hear these conflicted souls looking for something. Oh there is so much more to this one.

So after all that, why a 4.5. The audio narration. I got this one from NetGalley and started it sometime ago but was a bit taken back by how it opened...with the goat. So I set it aside for awhile and saw who the narrators were and *had* to grab the audio. I rotated back and forth between print and audio. But please narrators....DO NOT WHISPER in audios. It does nothing but aggravate the person listening.

Overall, I'm so glad I finally picked this one up. It's a rough story to read but so worth it in the end. I have the authors other books and can't wait to read these also. Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the early release of the book. Just sorry it took me so long to actually get to it.

This is a stunning, elegant, lyric epic narrative whose strength comes from its beautifully realized characters, fable like lyricism that remains rooted firmly in the necessary details of the shapes of social and spatial reality on individuals, families, communities--local to national, The writing is searingly good.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Scribner for providing me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.



Trigger Warnings: Dead sibling, addiction, cancer, dying family member, drugs

Plot: Jojo and his little sister Kayla live with their grandparents in rural Mississippi, and only occasionally see their mother Leonie. The grandmother is dying of cancer. the grandfather is trying to run the household and teach Jojo life lessons, and Leonie sees visions of her dead brother when she gets high. Then, when Jojo and Kayla’s white father Michael is released from prison, Leonie packs the kids and a friend in a car, and travels across the state to the Mississippi State Penitentiary. a journey that’s full of danger and promise.

It is of no surprise that Jesmyn Ward won the National Book Award for this novel. She is just such a fantastic writer, and has the ability to make readers of her work empathize with the most flawed characters. Characters who in theory should be the villains of the story, but you end up feeling for them. She makes you ache for them. All of her characters have experienced, or are experiencing an immense amount of pain, and this is reflected in their worldviews, the choices they make, and the lives they live.

The story mainly comes from the perspectives of Jojo and Leonie, who are both people of few words, always on guard, but their internal voices convey everything that they would not say out loud to the reader, and basically set up the entire book. Jojo is coming of age and holds so much resentment towards his mother, who is an absentee parent, while absorbing crucial life lessons from Pop, his grandfather, as he is trying to figure out how to be a man. Leonie on the other hand is the character that put me through the wringer emotionally. She is so deeply flawed, and everything she does or that Jojo says she does or does not do makes you want to hate her, but reading her perspective and what she’s thinking makes you not only empathize, but just ache for her. A drug addict, she’s haunted by visions of her dead brother whenever she’s high, and it’s a punch in the gut to read about it.

Jesmyn’s skill comes through in how she uses her characters- a lot of them are symbolic to further the story. Her writing makes you feel such pain with a story where terrible things just keep happening and there seems no reprieve, but still leaves you feeling hopeful at the end of it. There is no particularly happy ending, nothing is neatly tied up or resolved. Therein lies its beauty. I honestly could not find a single flaw in this book.

This was my first time reading her full-length novels (I’d previously read her memoir, Men We Reaped, and The Fire This Time), and she has become one of my favorite authors. I’m a total sucker for books that make me feel pain and that just sucker- punch me with all the emotions, and Sing, Unburied, Sing did just that. Devastatingly beautiful prose and an absolutely engrossing story, it is undoubtedly one of my favorites of 2017, and one that I urge you to read if you haven’t already.

https://dogeared-reads.com/2017/11/22/listen-closely-and-hear-the-singing/

Jojo is a young boy of 13 weighing his impending adulthood. His toddler sister relies on him, his grandfather confides his secrets in him, his grandmother is dying, his mother is increasingly absent and his father is about to be released from prison. Sing, Unburied, Sing is very much a story of the times, especially the struggles of the marginalized; but there is an underlying narrative of a time gone by. Things that we have hidden in the past often have a way of taking on a life of their own, of carrying their stories forward into the present and Jojo seems especially attuned to these stories as he works to make sense of the changing landscape around him. Sing, Unburied, Sing is a hymn to a hymn raised up to all that hurts us.

I started Sing Unburied Sing late last night and finished it this morning. It is gut wrenching, beautifully written, and deserving of all the accolades it has received so far and more....... it’s going to take me a while to process this one for a full review.......but any book that can make me cry while sitting alone in a coffee shop is absolutely a 5 Star read and going on my Top Reads of 2017.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward has already won the coveted National Book Award for Fiction. Awards speak to critical, literary recognition. What speaks to me is the characters and the story. For its many layers and its complex characters, the book is difficult to describe as the description may not capture its depth. This is a book that is greater than the sum of its parts and is memorable for its characters and its story.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2017/11/sing-unburied-sing.html

Reviewed for NetGalley

This is a tough book to read as it centers on a poor Mississippi family with undercurrents of meth addiction, parental neglect, racism and prison culture. There are ghosts and a supernatural element. These are broken people be it through drug addiction, cancer, hardscrabble living and abuse. Told in alternating chapters from the perspective of thirteen year old Jojo, his drug addict mother, or Richie the ghost who needs to be set free. A descriptive story that brings prison and the bayou to life. It is not a feel good story but it will stay with you.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

This is one of those books that receives such acclaim that I feel guilty for not liking it. Yes, the writing is beautiful and poetic, the characters well defined; but I couldn't relate to any of the characters or the story and found it a depressing read.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book from Netgalley, but unfortunately wasn't able to get it read prior to its release.  I ended up listening to the audiobook of this poetically told story and the narration for the book was excellent.  Although I can appreciate the beauty in the writing, I never got as engaged in the characters as I felt I should have or wanted to.  The story is about a poor family in Mississippi struggling to survive.  Leoni is a drug-addicted mom who ventures in and out of her children's lives.  Her thirteen-year-old  biracial son, Jojo, is the oldest and has pretty much been taking care of his three-year-old sister, Kayla, since she was born even though they live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop.  Mam is dying of cancer and Pop is struggling with that, but they show the kids love, kindness, how to survive in the world, and to be kind.  Given, Leoni's dead brother, also make appearances throughout the book in visions to Leoni when she is high. She is more interested in her relationship with the father of her children than being a mother, but she takes the kids on a perilous journey to pick up their father when he is released from prison.

This literary, character-driven book deals with themes of biracial identity, the responsibilities of parenting, addiction, family, and poverty.  If you are looking for a literary, lyrically written book with well-drawn characters, this one might be for you.  The book won the National Book Award, and was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and the Andrew Carnegie Medal, and was a Publisher's Weekly top 10 for 2017.