Sing, unburied, sing

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Jesmyn Ward: Sing, unburied, sing (2018)

367 pages

English language

Published April 4, 2018

ISBN:
978-1-4328-4652-7
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OCLC Number:
1002692592

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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.

7 editions

Sing, Unburied, Sing

I was not expecting the emotional roller coaster going into this book. The turn that the book takes about half way through that suddenly throws some magical realism into the plot threw me off a little. I would recommend this, but just make sure that you're up for a pretty bleak book.

Lyrically Beautiful and Devastating

This lyrically beautiful novel explores rural Mississippi, masterfully demonstrating how the present and all its struggles never seem far from the brutal past that created them. The questions that this novel leaves about what hope and healing look like in the rural South are pertinent ones, and their delivery is somehow both searing and soothing, holding our feet to the fire while knowing it is what we need most.

Long version: jdaymude.github.io/review/book-sing-unburied-sing/

unforgettable

This was both hard to read and hard to put down. I think Ward does an incredible job at keeping the balance between heartbreaking and heart-filling, and she never crosses over to the point that I couldn't bear to witness the pain. These characters will stay with me a long time.

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Subjects

  • Large type books
  • African American families
  • Fiction

Places

  • Mississippi

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