Sing, Unburied, Sing
by Jesmyn Ward
Literary Fiction. Themes: African-American, Southern, Magical Realism
As a woman from the Gulf Coast, National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward has been a part of my library for many years. The first book that I read of hers, “The Men We Reaped” touched me deeply and left its watery imagery, haunting trauma, and vivid portrayal of landscapes from home etched in my mind. But her books are hard to read because Ward writes the stories of those we (Americans) want to forget: the marginalized, the impoverished, the incarcerated, and the addicted.
“Sing, Unburied, Sing” is a classic Ward novel; a character-driven family drama where Ward introduces us to a boy on the cusp of manhood, JoJo, and his immediate family. The entire book is set over the course of a few weeks in a swampy Mississippi town as Jojo and his little sister accompany their mother (struggling with addiction in the shadow of her mother’s dying process) to pick up their father from prison on his release day. This story is incredibly layered, delicate and complex, but so immersive you’ll find yourself connected to the characters so deeply they feel real. The heartache this book renders is also real but the kind of dull ache that may be good for us because it reminds us of the sorrows and struggles of living within a faulty system, in a suffering world and haunted by the grief we all carry.
As bleak as “Sing, Unburied, Sing” can be, it also glimmers with hope. The main characters see the dead and bear witness to the violence and sorrow of their stories. Folk wisdom is passed down through the generations and we see herbs used to heal and mend, foraged from the land, and blended into concoctions. Ancestors, magic, spirits and VooDoo layer the atmosphere of this book and offer a fresh perspective I don’t see in books of this caliber. But the very bones of this work are grief, trauma, the dying process, and how we (the living) are inescapably touched by all three. It’s an essential read for a death and grief library, especially if you’re slightly homesick for the bayous and swamps, mystery and magic, stories and sorrows of the Gulf Coast.