Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Amy    

fiction, historical fiction

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward was an interesting novel. It tells the sad tale of a poor African-American family living in Mississippi and highlights some trying times they experience. Some problems (like the drug-related ones and relationship choices) were caused by individual decisions while others (dealing with illness, societal prejudices, jail practices) were inherent. While the daughter, Leonie, seems to be the least able to handle life in a graceful manner, she is fortunate to have strong, loving, devoted parents and a wise-for-his-age 13-year old son. Without that support system life would have been much harder for Leonie. Yet, she still manages to make life difficult for herself and the others.

The novel is told from a few different characters’ points of view and sometimes jumps around between the present and the past. At various points in the novel, Leonie’s father, Riv, tells his grandson, JoJo, an ongoing story from his time in jail as a young man, and that story is printed in a different font to signal the reader that it is a memory. It was very clear in the physical book. I hope that they were able to convey the different font in Kindle format but I’m too lazy to check. If not, I imagine it would be very confusing for the Kindle reader. It also might be a little difficult to comprehend in audio book form. So, I’m glad I was reading a physical book this time.

This novel is more interesting than your average “slice of life” novel about underprivileged families because it includes the existence of ghosts of the dead who are able to be seen and heard by some of the characters. Additionally, some characters are able to understand living creatures' thoughts and desires in a magical way. The writing is usually straightforward but has long passages of poetic description which were probably greatly appreciated by many readers but which pulled me out of the story and drew attention to the author instead of the characters in the story. Additionally, there was way too much vomit in this story. BLECH.

I enjoyed the characters and the way the story was told and it should generate some good discussion for my book club.