Sing, Unburied, Sing

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Published:
2017-09-05
Categories:
Publishers:
ISBN:
9781501126093
Meeting:
FBC Recommended R2.051
Pages:
304
File size (e-book):
2.1 MB
Download URL:
Book Availability:
available
Pre Order Availability:
no
Accessibility Features:
enabled

Description:

An intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing, Unburied, Sing examines the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power – and limitations – of family bonds.

Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man.  His mother, Leonie, is in constant conflict with herself and those around her.  She is black and her children's father is white.  Embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances, she wants to be a better mother, but can't put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use.

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 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 brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first century America.

Author Details:

Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the historic winner—first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction for "Sing, Unburied, Sing" (2017) and "Salvage the Bones" (2011). She is also the author of the novel "Where the Line Bleeds" and the memoir "Men We Reaped", which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. Jesmyn was born in California but moved to Mississippi at age three, where she grew up and now lives, drawing on her experiences to write about loss and inequality. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University.