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Sing, Unburied, Sing

Ward, Jesmyn. Book - 2017 Fiction / Ward, Jesmyn, Adult Book / Fiction / General / Ward, Jesmyn 8 On Shelf No requests on this item Community Rating: 4.4 out of 5

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Call Number: Fiction / Ward, Jesmyn, Adult Book / Fiction / General / Ward, Jesmyn
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch

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"A searing and profound Southern odyssey by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward. In Jesmyn Ward's first novel since her National Book Award-winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America. Drawing on Morrison and Faulkner, The Odyssey and the Old Testament, Ward gives us an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi's past and present that is both an intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. Ward is a major American writer, multiply awarded and universally lauded, and in Sing, Unburied, Sing she is at the height of her powers. 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. Sing, Unburied, Sing grapples with the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power, and limitations, of the bonds of family. Rich with Ward's distinctive, musical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic new work and an essential contribution to American literature"-- Provided by publisher.
"A searing and profound Southern odyssey through Mississippi's past and present"-- Provided by publisher.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Can't Wait to Read it Again submitted by evie2017 on July 3, 2018, 9:27am There are not many books I would choose to read a second or third time, but this one is an exception. Ward writes with a poetic fluency that makes this relatively simple plot teem with detail and imagery. It took me a few chapters to understand who each character was, which makes me eager to read this one again, as I'm now equipped with a better understanding of who each person is. Though the basis of the plot is a mere road trip, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a story rich with complex characters and meaningful relationships. I would highly recommend.

Deserves the Awards submitted by sdunav on July 22, 2018, 8:21am This is an evocative, gut-wrenching, unflinching, and wondrous family story set in Mississippi, spanning one African-American grandfather's younger days and his grandson's life in contemporary times. Read it, and then check out J. Drew Lanham's "The Home Place".

Solidly good book taking on great themes submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on August 7, 2018, 6:23pm For the first half of this book about families, rural life in the South in the 21st century, and race, I wasn’t entirely captured by the story or the writing. I didn’t dislike it… I just didn’t particularly care whether I was reading it or not. It was… just a book.

About half way through, however, the characters came to life for me, and I couldn’t put this down. The story mostly alternates between the perspectives of 13 year old Jojo, a biracial boy who feels the responsibility of caring for his baby sister and learning to be a man, and his drug-addicted mother Leonie, who bears the weight of history and choices and a family gift she never fully accepted.

The author uses ghosts as a tool in this story, which is rarely a favorite technique for me, but I do think that Ward did an excellent job and, without giving any spoilers (since this is mentioned in the blurb), used the boy’s ghost to phenomenal effect to tell a story that could not easily or as well be told another way. This might be one of my favorite uses of a ghost in a book ever.

Singing ghosts? submitted by psgriffi on July 21, 2019, 10:09pm My book club chose this book so I would've otherwise never read it. I would not choose a book that had singing ghosts for myself. I understand from reading the author's interviews that she's harkening back to Odysseus and the singing spirits from that classic. So why shouldn't the lynched ghosts get a voice too?

After finishing the book, it made me feel like I'm at least a better mother than Leonie. I have more maternal instinct than this woman. She can't even bother feeding her child enroute to pick up her incarcerated lover.

Beautiful! submitted by AGAPHD on August 1, 2020, 8:15pm The language is beautiful and the story is powerful. Recommended!

Heavy powerful read submitted by Jinxyluis on August 11, 2021, 2:08pm This was a hard and heavy book but so readable at the same time due to Ward's gorgeous writing. I most appreciated the clash of the now and the past and how it played out literally on the page.

Phenomenal submitted by manz on August 10, 2022, 9:48am A phenomenal read! This author is just spectacular. I listened to the audio on Libby, and it is one of the best narrated books I've listened to. The narrators are so believable as the voices of the few characters that tell the story. I liked this more than Salvage the Bones by Ward.

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PUBLISHED
New York : Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2017.
Year Published: 2017
Description: 289 pages ; 23 cm.
Language: English
Format: Book

ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
9781501126062
9781501126079

SUBJECTS
African American families -- Fiction.
Mississippi -- Fiction.
Thrillers (Fiction)
Road fiction.