Sing, Unburied, Sing

I know, I'm late to the party. This book made a big splash back in September - everyone was talking about it, and it won the National Book Award. My library, however, did not have enough copies to go around, and I was late putting a hold on it, so the hold I put on it in January finally came around to my turn!

In Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward returns to the same neighborhood in Mississippi that Salvage the Bones was written about. (Two of the siblings from Salvage the Bones show up in a scene in Sing.) The story is told from three different viewpoints: Jojo, a thirteen-year-old boy and the main character of the novel, Leonie, his drug-addicted mother, and Richie, the ghost of a boy Jojo's grandfather met in prison.

This book covers so much that it's difficult to categorize - between discrimination and outright bigotry, bi-racial romance and children, drug addiction, poverty, prison life - deep south gothic, I suppose, would be the best description. Sing really only takes place over a couple of days, but it feels much longer, because Jojo's grandfather tells stories of his time in prison decades prior, Leonie reminisces about high school, and there's just this sense of timelessness over the entire novel.

It's not an easy book. These are hard issues to grapple with, and too many people have to live with these issues. Poverty, bigotry, addiction - these things disproportionately affect the black community, and white people are to blame for the imbalance.

I'm not sure how I feel about the ghost aspect of the book; on one hand I feel like people will see the ghost and decide the book is fantasy - that they don't really need to care about the problems the family faces. On the other hand, the ghost allows us to see even more bigotry and inhumanity targeted at black people. So it serves a purpose.

I'm not sure I like this book. But I'm glad I read it. And that's pretty much going to be my recommendation; it's not a fun read, but it's an important one.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

3.5 stars. The second half was better than the first for me. Leonie redeemed herself a tiny bit and I loved Jojo throughout. I saw a lot of reviews couldn't get behind the ghosts, but they are what redeemed this book for me. Without them, this is mostly a book about shitty parenting.

Wow. Beyond deserving of all the awards and accolades. The audio is stunning and perfectly cast. Rutina Wesley is always welcome and a real magical pairing of voice and text and JoJo was spot on. I'll definitely be recommending this to adults and teens, and it will stay with me for a long time.