Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

"The weight of time he never bore in life holds him rigid now, cloaks him somber, whittles him sharp as Pop."

When you read Jesmyn Ward, you feel the truth of her words and her stories viscerally. They electrify each hair on your arm, punch you squarely in your gut, and etch themselves deep down in your soul. Her National Book Award-winning Salvage the Bones (2011) hit me this way a few years ago, and I eagerly looked forward to her second novel,  Sing, Unburied, Sing (Simon & Schuster, 2017). But I also wondered if anything could come close to the powerful and raw experience of Salvage. Sing, Unburied, Sing is nothing less than stunning, surpassing any expectation I could have had with a story that is so physical, so devastating, and at the same time so beautiful, it moved me to tears.

Sing, Unburied, Sing deals with tough subjects - poverty, addiction, race and racism, incarceration, and violence, and so it is not an easy book in many regards. 13-year old JoJo, is the heart. He lives in rural Mississippi with his younger sister, Kayla, his grandparents and primary caregivers, Mam, who is ill, and Pop, who once served time at the infamously cruel Parchman prison. Jojo's mother, Leonie is sometimes present, but even when she is physically there, she is really elsewhere. His father, Michael, who is white, is being released from jail.

While the journey to meet Michael on his release and to return home as a family is the surface of the novel, the true plot takes place deep within each character, and also deeply in the past. Ward takes us so thoroughly inside that even Leonie, who by almost every measure is a poor mother, becomes vivid, complicated, and sympathetic. The ghosts, too, are as real, present, and compelling as those who are alive. The use of the supernatural reminded me of Toni Morrison and Audrey Niffeneger - haunting, believable, and essential to the story.

The past is ever-present in Sing, Unburied, Sing, and the connections this book forges across time, place and people not only create a truly striking  novel, but also feel timely and true. Newsfeeds sometimes have a way of abstracting real people and real issues, making us feel more removed. Novels have a way of bringing them home and into your heart.

I purchased my copy of Sing, Unburied, Sing. Read an exerpt of the novel online at The Oxford American.

Happy reading!

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