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 … 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).
more
Great writing and a haunting story that will stay with you long after you’ve finished the last page.
Beautifully written.
Jesmyn Ward has a unique, poetic style of prose. Her powerful imagery and narrative style pull her readers into the imaginary world she has created and makes it hard for us to leave.
Sing, Unburied, Sing is at once a harrowing and unforgettable novel that is narrated with beautiful, breathtaking prose from the multiple perspectives of a son, a mother, and the ghost of a young Black boy. Together their plights offer fragments of a larger mosaic that encompasses the pain, suffering, and guilt echoing throughout the history of race, hate, and violence that continues to afflict America.
At twelve years old, Jojo cares more for his toddler sister, Kayla, than their mother Leonie does for either of them. Meth abuse has derailed Leonie’s ability to place her children’s needs above her own. When her boyfriend and the children’s father, Michael, a White man, is released from prison, Leonie decides that Jojo and Kayla, along with a friend of Leonie’s, should go on a road trip to pick up Michael at Parchman Penitentiary. Decades earlier, Leonie’s father, Pop, had also been incarcerated at Parchman for unjust causes, but his time spent at the facility changed his life forever.
Echoing the voices of both the living and the deceased, Ward breathes a spellbinding poeticism into the struggles of Jojo, Leonie, and the ghost Richie. Their narratives synchronize to assemble a haunting novel that examines the depths of love and family against the horrors and struggles of race in America’s past and present. While addressing race in America with Sing, Unburied, Sing, Ward exposes the hate that divides us and affirms the humanity that unites us.
This story was so well thought out. I enjoyed all the characters, even those I didn’t like; their actions I began understand and the struggle of their life and how they arrived to be the person they had become. I really enjoyed author’s the beautiful prose and style.
I’m not sure why I read this because I knew one of the voices was a dead boy and I don’t care for that. I’m very literal. And I felt the same sadness I felt when I read “Where the Crawdads Sing”, that people can so mistreat children and get away with it. No child should have to grow up in circumstances like these, even though the grandparents are doing the best they can. But the actual parents are a nightmare. The author is talented and the story is good, but between the child abuse and the ghosts, the book was just not my cup of tea.
While the characters in this book are remarkable, I could never quite follow the plot. For me, it was too loose, yet I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened. This author is an amazing writer of character development but the plot was not developed. Reading the book for a slice of life among a grandfather, his grandson and the other characters maybe sufficient for some but it missed what I kept waiting for.
Tugs at your heart. You will wish you could help the children. Very tragic story.
Enjoyed reading this tale–liked the super-natural aspects.
The author focuses on a singular journey by one family yet manages to invoke the fear, horror, and painful legacy of racism.
Rough lives. Told from several points of view.
This a is soul searing book about horrific acts that occurred in the prison system in the Deep South. Does life get any better even in the years after?
One of the best books I’ve read in years. Such beautiful prose to explore love in all its forms amid such a painful history and its presence still today. Evokes Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner.So lyrical and wise and a page turner as well.
This novel was an interesting mix of historical fiction and mystical storytelling. Sad and tragic yet life-affirming.
Good writing
One of the most original of the new American voices in literature.
I read at least 20 books at month…due to issue with battling cancer…so with my only outlet reading books…I always am open to any book I open on my kindle. However this book reminded me of a hamster wheel…it never goes anywhere…the characters remained in the hard to sort out world. I can’t tell you what the meaning behind this book…and can’t tell you a character that changed in any redeeming way…and the characters that had redeeming qualities simply lived in the hamster wheel. I would not waste my time reading this book. It pains me to say this because I feel any author that invests their time writing a book believes in the story…but I just couldn’t find that reason.
This book comes all together in the very end. I’m not even sure how to describe this book, but it won the National Book Award. Her writing is amazing. The story takes place in the deep South. Jesmyn Ward manages to write from multiple points of view, and makes it work, not an easy thing for any writer. In parts haunting, others hard to read because of child neglect (which I am always sensitive to), it has several twists. Stay with it to the end.
What I enjoyed most about the book was the way it developed rich and complex relationships between its 3 main characters – Leonie, Jojo, and Pop. Oscillating the narrative voice between multiple characters was clever and provides the reader with a unique perspective.
While there’s some beautiful writing and powerful moments, the story ultimately felt scattered to me, like it tried to cover too much ground in 300 pages. The story touches upon many themes – drug addiction, institutional racism, tragedy and grief, animism / nature mysticism – and although these paint a tapestry of rural Mississippi, none of them get quite enough attention. Leonie’s struggles with addiction aren’t well explored and her boyfriend Michael’s character isn’t well-developed.
As for “the ghosts,” I don’t mind magical realism and I thought it worked well throughout much of the story, tying together a historical thread. That being said, I found the climax and resolution downright confusing, and not in a good way.
I put off reading this novel because I’d read some of Jesmyn Ward’s essays, and I knew the novel would be one of those books that made me want to stop writing: what was the point when something as good as this already existed? As it turned out, I read the book on the heels of reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. About halfway through Sing, Unburied, Sing, I had a deja vu moment. The feelings Ward describes in the young character named Richie—imprisoned in Mississippi’s slavery-model prison known as Parchman and bent on escaping—could have been the feelings Douglass describes when he decides to run north for his freedom. It puts the truth to one of the themes of the novel: things don’t change. So many currents of our literary past flow through this book, and Ward digs new channels to make them her own. It’s a difficult act—aware of and using while creating something appropriately brand new—and Ward carries it off brilliantly. Which isn’t to take anything away from the readability of the novel. It’s wonderfully engrossing with characters I cared deeply about (even when I was judgmentally put out with them). Again a real accomplishment given that so much of the novel takes place during a car trip (As I Lie Dying, anyone?). I guess what I most appreciate about the novel is that it takes the Mississippi literary mantel and wraps it around the shoulders of a Black female writer. It’s about time.