Sing, Unburied, Sing

by Jesmyn Ward

Her lyrical language elevates desperation into poetic reverie.”

“Ward’s spellbinding prose has a fervid physicality, teeming with the sights, smells, tastes, and textures of her native Gulf town of DeLisle, Mississippi, rechristened here as Bois Sauvage.

Borrowed from CLP on 12/12/2023. A review: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/books/review/tracy-k-smith-on-sing-unburied-sing-jesmyn-ward.html My review notes at Goodreads: Jesmyn Ward, b. 1977, Stanford BA, MA; U. Mich. MFA; grew up in DeLisle, MS (cf. Bois Sauvage). This (2017) and her second novel, Salvage the Bones (2011) both won the National Book Award. An interview after her first NBA: https://web.archive.org/web/20111122095732/http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/18/author-wins-prestigious-award-for-book-ignored-by-literary-world/ Reminds me some of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970), in its gorgeously rendered desperation of the time and place, and of the flawed but sympathetic characters. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5038610036 The chapter pattern: J L J L J R L J R L J R J L J Misty the white girl’s hair Pop (River) the Black man’s stance Mam (Philomène) matriarch and wise Leonie unreliable narrator Jojo (Joseph) reliable narrator Richie narrator from beyond spirit in everything Mam and Pop tell their stories to Jojo. Pop’s about Parchman and Richie, Sad, cruel, beautiful. Bits of sweetness and humor. Chunks of fear and recrimination, ugliness and bigotry. Leonie is a terrible mother, by some standards abusive, yet she’s sympathetic in her own story. What’s that all about? She’s the most fascinating, if repellent, character in the story. Could she try any harder to be unsympathetic? Yet Ward insists on a measure, however small, of sympathy. What about empathy? Leonie has a capacity for compassion (Mam’s spirit) but cannot shake her core selfishness; she is sympathetic and understood but not redeemed, drug use increases after Mam’s death? What gives her sympathy? Only her own narrative? Jojo’s selfless care for Kayla, admiration for Pop, Jojo sees a white snake and a black bird guiding Richie - meaning? Then he sees a raccoon, a snake, and a vulture, ch. 15. He speaks of a need big enough to be a key. Why does Jojo think it will hurt Mam to tell her about his abilities? When Kayla sings to the unburied dead, does she send them home? Is Richie Included? Pop tells Jojo what happened to Richie - hard but necessary for Richie’s sake (who listens in - I’m sure Jojo questions his father for that purpose) so Richie can go home, and also for Jojo’s so he can (continue to) grow up in wisdom and compassion. Mam and Given achieve peace - is peace only available after death, and then only if those alive can act unselfishly? This is what I think: Jojo frees Given, who (together with Jojo?) then blocks Richie; while Leonie frees Mam to go with Given. Yet Jojo insists Leonie did wrong by letting Mam go (ch. 14) - he’s not grown enough (yet) to understand. Is Casper the shaggy black neighborhood dog also Casper the friendly ghost? Haha

Pop

I’ve earned these thirteen years,

Mam

Kayla

Leonie’s

Grandma Mam

Simile

Haha

Bois

“The big Joseph,”

Big Joseph is my White grandpa, Pop my Black one.

Michael,

my father,

That eye: still wet. Looking at me like I was the one who cut its neck,

I wonder if his panicked heart beat so fast it made his chest hotter,

my wondering’s made me slow.

Kayla’s

Leonie

That was when there was more good than bad,

Simile

Michael

Mam

He half smiles, and the side of his mouth that shows teeth is knife-sharp,

Simile

Simile

My name, Joseph,

Pop says a man should look another man in the face,

Simile

a trail that signals love

Simile - wow

Simile

When I was nine, Pop was good at everything.

Haha

Stag,

Simile

I couldn’t never make out any sense to anything he said;

Walked upright like Pop,

thinking I could almost hear them talk to me, that I could hear them communicate.

Simile

Casper,

it was impossible to not hear the animals,

singing sinking to silence

Simile

This is what Pop does when we are alone,

He tells me stories.

Making a connection, communicating, across the generations.

Richie.

the sticker vines