Jesmyn Ward

Reason read: National Book Award winner, been on the shelf since 2018, read as alternative read on NYT best 21st century books.
This is a story of a broken family. Addictions is a major factor in the brokenness. Of course there is more. This is a biracial couple with two children that are either in prison or using drugs so they're not available to their children. It is sad situation. The main character is JoJo or (Joseph). He is the son and he is the one that takes care of his little sister, Kayla. The story is told by three narrators: JoJo is 13; Leonie the mother of JoJo and Kayla; Richie the ghost. Through the elements of magical realism, ghosts, the author can bring forward to the present the past abuses but also demonstrates the ongoing prejudices by the episode of the police officer stopping their car and putting people into handcuffs without cause. The book has been a coming of age story, a road trip fiction, thriller (I don't see this) and Southern Fiction. There is some African Voodoo culture in the book.… (plus d'informations)

A searing, eviscerating, story presented in gorgeous writing, Sing, Unburied, Sing was a hard book to read. The characters’ pasts and present lives are filled with pain and longing, addiction, racism, and the prison system shattering lives.

The young boy JoJo emerges as a quiet hero, his little sister Kayla’s refuge. Their father is in prison, their mother self-involved and addicted to meth. Their grandparents nurtured them, but Mam is dying of cancer and Pop is struggling with her dying.

When JoJo’s father is to be released from prison, his mother takes the children on a road trip to meet him at the prison. Kayla is ill the entire trip, clinging to her older brother, thie children’s’ needs are not only unmet but irritating to the adults.

At the prison, the spirit of a boy, Richie, who died there joins the family; he seeks JoJo’s grandfather who had protected the him while in prison. He believes that if Pop can tell him how he died, he will be released from this world.

Richie realizes how little life has changed since he was alive. “Sometimes I think it done changed. And then I sleep and wake up, and it ain’t changed none.” Black boys and men are still targeted, still end up in prison for minor crimes.

The climax reveals a horrendous choice Pop had to make. Yet, JoJo takes his Pop’s strength and dignity as a mantle, learns to live with the ghosts, and we hope that he can transcend the past, taking Kayla with him, into a better future.

Now available in paperback.… (plus d'informations)