I had never read Ward’s work before, and now that I have I will follow her anywhere. Sing Unburied, Sing is a literary masterpiece, and one that fits the time in which we live. It opens up all sorts of thorny questions for examination, but like most thorns, it stings. I received my copy free and early courtesy of Scribner and Net Galley. This title is available to the public now.

Jojo and Kayla have been raised by their grandparents in rural Mississippi; Mam and Pop are their source of love and stability. Leonie, the mother they call by her first name as if she were a sister, drifts in and out, using copious amounts of meth and other drugs. Michael, the children’s Caucasian father, is being released from Parchman, the notorious prison where he has been sent after having killed Leonie’s brother, Given. Given comes to her when she’s high. She doesn’t know it, but Jojo and Kayla can see him, too.

The contours of this story have to look familiar to a lot of people, and we are faced with unanswerable questions. Is it better, for example, for children to be raised by grandparents, though they are infirm and exhausted and have earned some time to themselves in peace and without dependents, or is it better for their parent or parents to take them, although they have no money, job, or parenting skills?

Whether it’s the right thing to do or not—and I’ll tell you right now that for Jojo and Kayla, it isn’t—Leonie swoops in and after overcoming her mother’s resistance, takes the children and heads for Parchman to pick up her man. There is no plan at all in place for once he’s been retrieved. Leonie is not the swiftest deer in the forest, and then of course she’s high a lot of the time, and seems to have been solipsistic from the get-go; at one point in the story Mam tells Jojo that his mama just doesn’t have the mothering instinct.

It’s the understatement of the century.

On their odyssey they encounter racist cops, a Caucasian drug-dealing attorney, and a host of other beings, living and not. The narrative is told in the first person by Leonie and Jojo alternately, with a voice from Pop’s past peeking in once the adventure is underway. Although the characters are traveling physically through most of the story, it’s not about setting; it’s about character. We learn these characters so intimately that it’s almost as if we ride beneath their skins, and we also learn Pop’s terrible secret.

None of this description can convey Ward’s alchemy, her capacity to take the language and shape it into something much more than its parts, nor does it adequately relay her skill, authority, and overwhelming power. Ward is a lion.

That said, if you need a feel-good novel, this book is not for you. It’s a dark, tragic, terrible story, and the characters are largely unlovable ones, but none of this should keep you from it. This novel will be talked about for a long, long time.

Highly recommended to those that love excellent fiction.

Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing is true Southern Gothicism at its finest. It is a novel that I’ve been waiting a very long time to read, and I mean that both literally and figuratively. There is so much within these pages—so much angst, so much wonder and so much sorrow—that I am still grappling with it even now. And that’s a wonderful thing, the best feeling and the most lasting impression a writer can ever bestow on their reader.

I read, before reading this novel, that Jesmyn Ward had recently been called the modern-day Faulkner, and I doubted this, I admit, likely because of all the books out there I’ve encountered doing reviews that are buoyed up by their awe-inspiring cover flaps and exalted comparisons to other, greater works, only to fall flat on their faces under the weight of such lofty and inaccurate comparisons. But Sing, Unburied, Sing is the real deal. Its utter humanity and heart bursts forth from every page, particularly leading up to the climax, never shying away from the reality of hard living, always staring it down right in its face, urging us to look it in the face, too. Don’t turn away. I could never turn away.

This is the tale of two Mississippi families, one black and one white, joined by bloodshed and bloodlines. Joined by love and hatred, by death and birth. But this is also a coming-of-age story of one teenaged boy, Jojo, whose life is forever changed. Jojo is the biracial son of the often high, often absent Leonie—who sees her murdered brother, Given, in drug-induced hallucinations—and Michael, whose hostile, racist family will never accept his black girlfriend and half-breed children. Jojo is caught between being a parent to his three-year-old sister, Kayla, and learning to be a man from his grandfather, Pop. But this place he is emotionally sandwiched between is a place he calls home, a place of comfort and togetherness, between Kayla and Pop—until Leonie comes back from a bender and piles them all in the car on the way to Parchman Penitentiary to retrieve Michael from the prison that has changed and ended so many lives connected to theirs. It is on this journey that Jojo sees the naked truth of racial hierarchies and the hatred the South is all too known for, and discovers his gift of sight he never knew he had. And it is also on this journey that Jojo faces who his mother is, what she is capable of and what she will never be.

“When I wake, Michael’s rolled all the windows down. I’ve been dreaming for hours it feels like, dreaming of being marooned on a deflated raft in the middle of the endless reach of the Gulf of Mexico…Jojo and Michaela and Michael with me and we are elbow to elbow. But the raft must have a hole in it, because it deflates. We are all sinking, and there are manta rays gliding beneath us and sharks jostling us. I am trying to keep everyone above water, even as I struggle to stay afloat. I sink below the waves and push Jojo upward so he can stay above the water and breathe, but then Kayla sinks and I push her up, and Michael sinks so I shove him in the air as I sink and struggle, but they won’t stay up: they want to sink like stones…they keep slipping from my hands…I am failing them. We are all drowning.”

If a hallmark of Southern writing is setting, Ward’s novel offers that in spades. Here, in the blazing sun of Mississippi, you can feel the sweat dripping from the characters’ brows, feel their pulse as they confront one another—as they confront themselves. The suffering within these pages was tangible, palpable, like a pulse in the air, a drumbeat at the turn of every page. It marked the characters’ lives just as numbers mark the bottom of each page. But Ward goes beyond that—beyond the quintessential tale of Southern burdens, anguish and racial hate, beyond the stereotypes we can all so readily pluck from our minds to describe the Bible Belt in all its historical wonder and terror. When I say that Sing, Unburied, Sing is true Southern Gothicism at its finest, I mean that it binds, bridges and merges every aspect of the genre—social commentary, magical realism, surrealism and grit. Blood, sweat, tears, but, most of all: haunting and poetic soul.

This novel will stay with me for a long time. There were aspects of this book that I did not immediately like, but that all came together in the end. And, quite honestly, I haven’t read such an emotively resonating ending like that since Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif,” and for that I could only ever give a well-deserved 5 stars. *****

I read [book:Salvage the Bones|10846336] in 2012, after a friend recommended it. To put it mildly, I loved that book. So I was excited to hear Jesmyn Ward had a new one coming out. It seemed like a long time in between books. However, something I've noticed is some of the best writers take years in between books and it's usually worth the wait. This isn't to say that all writers who churn out books more frequently can't produce high quality novels. Some can. But in my experience, the books that worm their way into your heart the most tend to come from authors who aren't as prolific. Just an observation. This book was worth the wait.

It didn't capture me immediately like, "Salvage," did and in the middle it took a turn that I wasn't sure about. Instead, I slowly fell in love with some of the characters and felt sympathy for ones I was determined to dislike. And that turn in the middle? I ended up liking it.

JoJo and his sister Kayla live with their mother and their grandparents. It's really the grandparents raising them. Their mother Leonie is addicted to drugs, physically absent often and mentally absent always. Their father Michael is in jail. JoJo and Kayla depend on their love of each other and their love of grandparents, Mam and Pop to survive. Then Leonie gets a call that Michael is getting out of jail and she takes the kids and a friend on a road trip to pick him up.

The first voice you hear is JoJo's and because of this, I went in bound and determined to dislike Leonie. I should have known that Ward doesn't write one dimensional characters. Suddenly, the narrative is Leonie's and you see that there's more to her. I won't say that I ended up loving her. But I ended up knowing why she was the way she was and my heart hurt for her.

There's also another voice in this story. It was this voice that gave me pause and made me wonder if I liked the direction the book was going in. I realize I'm being vague but as usual, I try not to infuse my reviews with spoilers and I feel that by revealing the voice, I'll be spoiling something. Suffice to say, I fell for this voice too and the book was better for it.

"Sing, Unburied, Sing," has a dash of magical realism in it that, "Salvage the Bones," did not. If that's not your cup of tea, I still think you may enjoy this book as it doesn't take over the book but more compliments it.

Ward has written another powerful novel and I'll try to wait patiently for her to bestow us with another literary gift. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this review copy.

Thanks so much to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This is a beautifully written tale of a very sad story of a family in Mississippi - one that is far too prevalent and full of poverty, racism, and drug abuse. It's the story of one family - Mam and Pop are the grandparents, raising JoJo and Kayla, while their drug-addicted mom, Leonie, flits in and out of their life. Pop tries his best to raise JoJo to be a good man, telling him stories of his time in Parchman prison. Mam is dying of cancer and her death permeates sadness through the house. The kids' dad, Michael, is just being released from Parchman, and Leonie, a friend and the kids take a road trip to pick him up. The book is separated into chapters written from the viewpoints of JoJo and Leonie, interwoven with chapters about Richie, a ghost from Pop's time in Parchman.

It's so hard to see how drug abuse or maybe just her nature allows Leonie to be such a horrid, selfish mother to JoJo and Kayla. The ghost appearances, while strange, allow more of the story to be told.

Sing, Unburied, Sing is brilliantly written. Ward immediately opens the story by showing you the strength of will and determination of thirteen year old JoJo to prove that he is ready and meant to be a man. Not just a man, but a man worthy of his grandfather's approval. I knew without a doubt, that if Ward delivered a scene that gripping right off the bat, that this book was going to be an emotionally difficult read. Sing, Unburied, Sing is a hard story to digest, but is written in such an amazing way that I didn't want to be spared it's rawness.

Ward directly shows and addresses the trauma that poverty, social injustice, grief, addiction, and disease inflicts on this entire family. The ghosts that appear in the story fill in the gaps that are important in understanding that what is happening in the present represent consequences of things that happened in the past. Leonie's inability to spare her children any of her passion and energy is terrible, and almost unforgivable, but even her selfishness has some reason behind it. Not necessarily an acceptable reason, but a reason. Mam and Pop share a past, that when revealed, provides plenty of reason for a haunting. But it's JoJo who will break your heart and then steal the pieces. His character will stick with me for a very long time.

Ward is unapologetic in her delivery of harsh reality and what an unjust destiny can deliver to a family. Nothing in this story is sugar coated, which forces Ward's readers to accept and process all of the bitterness that seems to outrun the sweet. Sing, Unburied, Sing is a devastating yet beautifully written story.

This book was absolutely stunning. @rebeccaschinsky described it as being a gut-punch in the All the Books podcast and I 100% agree with her. The story in this book is equal parts devastating and uplifting. The writing is lyrical and beautiful, all the characterisation is fantastic. This is a story of an African-American family coping with life and racism in the South but it's also a dark story about the ghosts who, literally and figuratively, haunt us which I wasn't expecting but I loved. I would really recommend this book to everyone, I think even if it's not your usual type of thing you'd get something from it! Can't wait to read more from Jesmyn Ward.

Review scheduled to be published on Sept 5, 2017

A very emotional dark story that takes place in Mississippi. Very sad events happen to the characters. You are driven to read with the hope that things will get better. They couldn't possibly get worse. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

As usual, Ward writes with a gritty eye that unflinching in its refusal to look away from the harder aspects in the lives of her characters.  She is very descriptive in her writing, painting a picture with her words of the place the characters inhabit.  Elements of the supernatural as well as realism can be found in this story.  Also, poverty and the effects of poverty, racism, and dysfunctional families.  This novel is character driven.  Several narrators contribute over the course of the novel but the main character throughout is JoJo.

JoJo is only thirteen years old but finds himself in that unique place between childhood and adulthood where he wants to be babied sometimes but also finds himself being the main parent character of his little sister Kayla.  Their mother, Leonie, is in and out of their lives.  She has a drug problem and only parents her children in a most basic way.  Their father, Micheal, is in prison as the novel opens, he is not much of a parent either.  Their grandparents, Pop and Mam, have done most of the parenting of JoJo and Kayla.  Mam is dying of cancer.

Memorable in this story is a road trip to Parchman Prison to pick up Micheal.  Also a story from Pop's past that is incredibly sad.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this novel.

The writing first and foremost kept me flipping pages, that and the angst for the children's safety. I got a little bogged down in the mysticism but that's just me. I had a problem with Like Water for Chocolate too. In the end I realized what a brilliant vehicle the mysticism was to include the history of the Southern Negro, the unrelenting poverty and the intentional cruelty, without being heavy handed, almost like brush strokes. I finished this last night and found myself still thinking about it in bed, pairing the loss of dignity and helplessness of the past with today's meth epidemic, which has eviscerated potential and hope for today's American Blacks in poverty.

I fell in love with Jojo, with his maturity and determination and with his love and care for his little sister, Kayla. So often when parents are addicts the children become the parents. Grandparents Pop and Mam love these kids and tried to raise them, to keep them safe, but meth is a mean and unreasonable siren call to the users, and as so often happens, the parents continually muddled things up. I was left with the question of what will happen when the old folks with the old ways are gone, who will lead the young generation? This book would provoke a lot of discussion for a book club.

Sing, Unburied, Sing is not a light read. If you're like me, it will suck you in, though the nature of the story does not give you pleasure while you read. Engrossed as I was, every page left me completely filled with anxiety, pain, disgust, or sadness. For the smallest of moments here and there a tiny inkling of joy would settle, though it was fleeting. It's just that kind of story.

Prevalent themes include racism/prejudice, physical abuse, drug abuse, child endangerment/neglect, and something along the lines of voodoo. If you can't handle these then you need not bother yourself with Sing, Unburied, Sing. If, however, you're up for a heart wrenching and haunting story, look no further.

For the most part I liked this book a lot. I can't even really tell you why as it seems in many ways there wasn't anything to like. It was all so harsh and bleak. I did not get or enjoy the Richie storyline. I liked hearing Pop tell his stories about him, but that's where that particular vein's appeal died for me. I can't say more without giving too much away. As for the rest, it almost seems like a cop off to say nothing more. Yet, I hesitate to say too much because I genuinely don't know how to put it into words and would hate to short sell it. Just know, if you read this book, it will stick with you.

A huge thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced review copy and opportunity.

5★ (in spite of my gripe below)

“. . . the way they turn to each other like plants following the sun across the sky. They are each other’s light.”

A haunting story, beautifully written. The unburied have been strung up in the trees or left in the fields for the dogs. For whatever reason, they are still with us, and some people have the gift (or curse) of seeing and/or hearing them.

We do meet other ghosts, some of whom have died unexpectedly and aren’t yet resigned to their fate. Bu just because they are dead, doesn't mean they are silent.

There is a lot of actual singing by various characters, as well as the sounds or ‘singing’ of ghosts. Thirteen-year-old Jojo continually sings nursery rhymes to Kayla, his three-year-old sister, all the time to distract her from the scary things and foul language around them, while he keeps an alert, wary ear open for threats. He adores her, and she clings to him for protection from their self-absorbed, drug-addicted parents.

“‘Jojo,’ she says, and pats my cheeks, my nose. Pulls open my eyelids. I jump and wake and fall off the sofa, and Kayla laughs, bright and yellow and shiny as a puppy that just got the knack of running without tripping over her own legs.”

She is fairer than he is, with blue eyes and blonde curls. He’s darker, like his granddad River (Pop). Their white father, Michael, is in Parchman, a jail a few hours’ drive from where they live with their black mother, Leonie, and her parents in fairly primitive circumstances in Mississippi.

Neither Leonie nor Michael is inherently bad, just selfishly obsessed with drugs and each other, and needing to get high to escape their problems. They’ve been sweethearts since school, Leonie says,

“. . . because from the first moment I saw him walking across the grass to where I sat in the shadow of the school sign, he saw me. Saw past skin the color of unmilked coffee, eyes black, lips the color of plums, and saw me. Saw the walking wound I was, and came to be my balm.”

Jojo and Kayla live in the caring embrace of Leonie's parents, Pop and Mam (who’s dying of cancer in her bed now). And an embrace it is. In this story, people are constantly hugging, burrowing, smooshing their faces into shoulders, curling up into each other for comfort. [I did feel like I needed to come up for air a few times!] Jojo describes Leonie and Michael on the front porch after a fight.

“They were so close to each other, their hips and chests and faces, that they were one, scuttling, clumsy like a hermit crab over sand.”

Jojo sounds surprisingly poetic for a 13-year-old, backwoods kid. In fact, that’s my only real gripe. When stories are told in the first person, the language should be believable. A child should think and relate in a child’s language.

“The floors are uneven. They are highest in the middle of each room in the naked house, and then slope down to the four shadow-sheathed corners.”

I love the phrase “shadow-sheathed” but I don’t believe for a second that Jojo would know those words, let alone use them. Later, listening to someone’s music, he thinks:

“The music, all violins and cellos, swells in the room, then recedes, like the water out in the Gulf before a big storm.”

Again, lovely, but not the language of a boy like Jojo. [ I can think of only one guy I’ve ever known who might conceivably have used that language at thirteen, and he grew up to be a prize-winning author, but that’s another story.]

Leonie and Jojo alternate chapters (along with another boy later), and we do learn why Leonie is such a mess. While bow-hunting with white men (who had guns), her beloved brother, Given, was shot and "accidentally" killed by Michael’s cousin. Leonie and her parents have never recovered from the loss, and unbeknownst to anyone else, Leonie sees him (but can’t hear him), when she’s high.

I will quote the publisher’s (and Goodreads’) blurb, which summarises the story, in case you haven’t read it.

“Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high; Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man. When the white father of Leonie’s children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise.

We meet Jojo on his 13th birthday, when Pop takes him along (now that he’s becoming a man) to slaughter and dress a goat for the birthday dinner. They are subsistence farmers, and this is just a normal part of life. Pop seems to be a kindly soul who keeps his livestock hidden in the woods and has a special connection with animals. Another person says of him later:

“River held out his hands to the dogs like he was a reverend and they were his church. They were quiet with listening, but he didn’t say anything. Something about the way they froze together in the blue dawn was worshipful.”

The goat scene is a bit much for young Jojo, and Pop says gently that Jojo had best get back to the house to see if his little sister was up yet. When Leonie finally shows up later in the day with a poor excuse for a cake (a baby shower cake with booties!), Jojo is understandably disappointed.

Leonie is annoyed that the kids are calling her by her first name (because she’s hardly a mother), and she’s jealous of their closeness. When she drags them to Parchman to collect Michael, she ignores their hunger and thirst, focussed only on herself and drugs.

She sees Given (the ghost, whom she calls ’Given-not-Given’) when she’s high. She loves seeing him – it frightens her, but she keeps getting high because she misses him. She remembers that one day, when they were young, her mother had scolded him for forgetting to take off his muddy boots before coming inside.

“Your brother can’t even hear what I tell him, never mind what the world sings. But you might. If you start hearing things, you tell me,’ she said.”

Mama (Mam) first referred to the ability to hear the singing, then stopped herself.

“Mama put her hand over her mouth like she’d told me something she shouldn’t have, like she could cup her words and scoop them back inside, back down her throat to sink to nothing in her stomach.”

. . . ’You might have it,’ Mama said. ’Really?’ I asked. ’I think it runs in the blood, like silt in river water. Builds up in bends and turns, over sunk trees.’ She waved her fingers. ‘Rises up over the water in generations. My mama ain’t have it, but heard her talk one time that her sister, Tante Rosalie, did. That it skips from sister to child to cousin. To be seen. And used. Usually come around full blown when you bleed for the first time.’”

Mam was also a healer and local medical consultant, but Leonie never paid enough attention, and now that Mam is dying, she realises how much knowledge is dying with her.

Running alongside and around this story is Pop’s story. He’s having a bad time of it, with his beloved Philomena at death’s door and his daughter threatening to take his grandchildren away. He talks to Jojo often about how bad Parchman was when he served time there, when he tried to protect a very young prisoner from the shocking abuse that was commonplace.

Jojo is beginning to have his own thoughts about the singing of ghosts, and he pressures his grandfather to tell him more. Under pressure, Pop describes the terrifying ordeals of black prisoners, who were treated as runaway slaves were - whipped, hunted by dogs, lynched, and left to die.

It’s uncomfortable - no, it's horrifying - to think that so much hasn’t changed in 200 years and that black lives still don’t matter in many places in America's rural south. No wonder people are arguing today about statues celebrating leaders who were fighting to retain slavery.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner / Simon and Schuster for the review copy from which I’ve taken the liberty of quoting, so quotes may have changed on publication.

Incredibly powerful. Incredibly hard to read. Such a painful reminder of our past and how it is still with us. I wasn't sure I was going to make it past the first scene, the slaughtering and butchering of a goat, and I grew up on a farm where people hunt. There are some other very violent scenes involving human suffering, so if those are hard for you to read, then this may not be the book for you. But this book will stay with me for a long time, and Ward is the kind of author we need right now, reminding us of a past that is not so long ago, and why we have to fight racism with every fiber of our being.

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

A haunting insight into the truth about a life of poverty in the Deep South…
Jesmyn Ward is the award winning author of the critically acclaimed book, Salvage the Bones. Sing, Unburied, Sing is her first complete novel since its publication. Ms. Ward’s talent is undeniable. Her passion for her craft, her ability to provoke a broad range of emotions, in her readers, through her words, and her knowledge of both present hardships and past history are apparent from page one. I absolutely appreciated the importance of the story, the depth of her character development and the way in which she handled the difficult subject and the multiple points of view. However, I think, for me, I found it tough to relate to both the setting and the characters, simply because my knowledge of the history of that area of the country, as well as my comprehension of many of the situations the family finds themselves in, is lacking.



The novel is alternately narrated by thirteen year old Jojo, and drug addict and his neglectful mother, Leonie, with appearances by the ghostly voices of relatives who have passed, mostly represented by Leonie’s murdered brother, Richie. Jojo and his little sister Kayla live in a poor, rural area of Mississippi with their Mam, who is dying of cancer, their Pop, who is legitimately the only responsible adult in the household, and Leonie, when she deigns to appear. At the start of the book, their white father, Michael, is serving time in the state penitentiary. I felt that Pop, who, in my opinion, honestly was the glue holding the family together, should have played a larger narrative role.

The story changes setting several times, from their house in the backwoods, to a disturbing road trip to the prison. There are multiple flashback episodes- fromwhen Pop regales Jojo about relatives, or history, to when Leonie stumbles through a drug-addled trance. Magic and spiritualism play a part throughout, and for me that was another aspect I just could not connect with.

Sing, Unburied, Sing is real. It is gripping and disturbing. It is a sad tale, woven with hints of hope. The novel is beautifully written with a chilling perspective on what life is like for those who are forgotten. I only wish I had the ability and the depth of knowledge to appreciate and enjoy its brilliance, as much as I would have liked to.

3.5 Stars

Man, it was so hard for me to review this one. I wanted so much to love it like everyone else but unfortunately, I just couldn't connect to the story like so many others had.

Sing Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward is a powerful, beautiful and well-written novel dealing with poverty and racism in southern Mississippi, however, there was just something missing for me, I guess I was looking for a deeper meaning to it all. Perhaps what made me lose the connection was the presence of several ghosts, or going from the past to present with different narrators. Whatever it was, I'm sorry to say, I just couldn't connect with this novel.

*I want to thank NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Jojo sees the dead and hears the voices of animals. He is blessed with grandparents and a sister who love him. He is cursed with a mother who has no mothering in her, and a father who will never put Jojo first. Jojo lives in a terribly dangerous world, described in beautiful and precise details by Ward.

The memory is a living thing - it too is in transit. But during its moment, all that is remembered joins, and lives - the old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead.
- from One Writer's Beginnings, by Eudora Welty

With her story of Jojo's family, Ward writes a small family story which mirrors the bigger American story out there. The American story that bred Parchman, the Mississippi State Penitentiary and the systems that continued slavery without the official title. We get unacknowledged ghosts who cannot lay down and rest before their pain is acknowledged, tasted and digested. We get how to be together, like Pop and Big Joseph, or like Leonie and Michael. The thing is: any people who share space have to learn to live together, to not dirty the pool they drink from. Figuring how is the great battle. Cannot be done without an open heart and an open mind. The past cannot be got rid of at the snap of a figure just by forgetting. Like Ward's story itself, all this is a journey which needs to be taken so that everything climbs up on board, the past, the hurt, the present, repentance, forgiveness and hopes for the future.

So how Ward dealt with time is very apt. Time here is rather shady. Time settings can be deciphered only through peripherals like Leonie's car or mobile. I felt this to be in line with how Ward dealt with time in the story. How things have remained the same regardless of time passing, we see this more and more when we read Richie's story.

Leonie and Michael's inconsistent parenting parallels the inconsistent leadership and society which shillyshallies about trying not to see. But still Leonie and Michael have to find a way forward regardless of their perilous path because together is the only way forward.

This was my first fiction by Jesmyn Ward after reading her The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race

SING, UNBURIED, SING is a new novel by Jesmyn Ward, winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction for Salvage the Bones. Once again, Ward employs her many skills as a writer, sharing the story of devoted, mixed race siblings JoJo and Kayla, of their parents Leonie and Michael, and of two sets of grandparents, Mam/Pop and Maggie/Big Joseph. In addition to incorporating a song motif, alternating narrators relate a powerful story with themes of racism, cycle of poverty, and coming of age. Set in rural Mississippi, much of the action involves a harrowing car trip to Parchman, an infamous prison where Michael has spent three years and where Pop was previously unjustly incarcerated. On the verge of becoming a man at thirteen, JoJo senses that all is not as it should be. At some level, he is aware of the drug use and is not sure how to confront a mother who he believes hates him despite his grandmother’s assurances that, "No, she loves you. She doesn't know how to show it. And her love for herself and her love for Michael – well, it gets in the way. It confuse her." JoJo is attuned to spirits, hyper-aware of the thoughts and feelings of others, ever protective of his younger sister and often encourages his much-respected black grandfather to share his stories and unburden himself. SING, UNBURIED, SING received starred reviews from Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly and will be added to our Junior Theme book list.

LOCAL NOTE: Jesmyn Ward will be speaking (along with Natalie Moore, author of The South Side) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017, 7:00 PM at the Evanston Township High School Auditorium, 1600 Dodge Avenue in Evanston, Illinois​. For more information, visit the Family Action Network website.

Link in online post: http://www.familyactionnetwork.net/

I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for my advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This book was difficult for me. At first, I really couldn't figure out what time epoch we were in, or maybe if we were jumping between years. It seemed so important to me to figure out when this story was taking place as if that would allow me to make sense of it. I struggled quite a bit to get interested or attached to the plot. I felt like I was dragging along. I felt like I needed context to understand the characters.

Reading on though, I realized that was exactly the point. Turns out, this book is a haunting that is simultaneously utterly dependent on time and also completely independent of it: a haunting so deeply immersed in the people of the story, their ghosts, and the ghosts of our societal failures and tragedies. If you can imagine a post-apocalyptic world like McCarthy's The Road and apply that feeling you got reading that book to this family, you have the main characters of this novel. They're hopeless and lost, they're beyond despair and completely wrecked, each in their own way. They're in fact so lonely despite being surrounded by family members that you wish you could step in and shake them and make them see what they have.

The entire book is driven by the most intense imageries and analogies: real ghosts mingle with inner demons, drug-induced states intertwine with dreams and spiritual rites and trances, and death meets life at every corner. The plot itself is very scarce and honestly probably adds very little. The family dynamics and each character's development are the main focus of this novel. Each character is multi-layered, complex, and very unique - yet there is a common thread between all of them, a thread that we all can relate to: life is hard, and sometimes you get the shittiest cards dealt, and what you do with it is up to you.

Beautiful words tell a very sad story. I could see this becoming a classic one day, so you should probably read it soon. As I said, I struggled a bit at the beginning but in hindsight, I realize this is part of the experience. I am glad I stuck with it, as I now know, this book will stick with me.

Je voyais un tas d'articles annonçant le prochain livre de Jesmyn Ward. Quand j'ai vu que NetGalley le proposait, je me suis précipitée pour découvrir cette auteure dont je n'avais encore rien lu. En plus, j'étais sûre que l'histoire me plairait : un couple mixte dans le Sud des États-Unis, des enfants métis et un road trip. Tout pour me plaire.

Mississippi de nos jours. Jojo, 13 ans, vit avec ses grand-parents, sa petite sœur Kayla et de temps en temps, sa mère Leonie. Son père, Michael est en prison pour trafic de drogue. Leonie est noire, Michael est blanc. Les enfants n'ont jamais vu leurs grand-parents blancs car leur grand-père n'admet pas que son fils couche avec une Noire. Leonie ne s'est toujours pas remise de la mort de son grand frère, assassiné au cours d'un "accident de chasse" par le cousin de Michael, et se drogue. Elle s'occupe tant bien que mal de ses enfants, mais ce sont ses parents et surtout Jojo qui prennent soin de Kayla. Quand Michael annonce à Leonie qu'il va sortir de prison, elle décide d'aller le chercher avec leurs enfants et une de ses collègues (droguée elle aussi). Les voilà en route pour Parchman où avait été incarcéré le grand-père de Jojo à la fin des années 40 alors que la prison s'apparentait plus à un bagne.

Ça, c'est l'histoire que j'avais vraiment envie de lire et que j'ai lue. Malheureusement, elle s'est retrouvée un peu perdue au milieu de longs passages de réalisme magique. Et c'est quelque chose que j'ai vraiment en horreur. Une vision de temps en temps passe encore. Mais vers la fin, ça devenait systématique et je ne comprenais plus du tout où l'auteure voulait en venir. Et c'est vraiment dommage. J'étais déjà désolée que le couple mixte décrit soit aussi dysfonctionnel ; Leonie et Michael sont très amoureux, mais aussi très violents l'un envers l'autre, et avec leurs enfants. Mais je pouvais passer outre. En revanche, certaines "histoires de fantômes" m'ont gâché la lecture et j'ai souffert pour terminer.

J'ai lu un article où Jesmyn Ward explique la présence de ces esprits. Elle parle aussi d'un autre aspect qui me semble invraisemblable et me gêne toujours : le fait qu'un personnage "rustre" puisse s'exprimer avec autant de lyrisme. Ses explications se tiennent, alors j'accepte mieux ces passages dans ce roman. (L'article se trouve ici.)

Donc, bon roman, histoire bien menée, mais que je ne recommande pas aux non-amateurs de réalisme magique.