Sing, unburied, sing by Jesmyn Ward

Hardcover, 289 pages

Published November 2nd 2017 by Scribner (first published September 5th 2017)

Series: Bois Sauvage #2

Fiction

Library

I am not good with writing thoughtful reviews, and this book deserve better than what I can do.

The book is told by Jojo, who was raised my his grandparents. His gran is dying. He spends much of his time looking after his baby sister. His white father is in jail, his white grandparents are racists.

The other POV is Leonie, Jojos mother. She does drugs, she likes her man more than her kids. She sees her dead brother. Yeah, that was a thing, this book is also infused by tiny bit of the paranormal that feels so right. I totally believe she can see her dead brother, killed by the systematic racism in the deep south.

It is a road trip book, bring the dad back from prison. Driving through bad country, driving through memories of how things used to be since JoJos grandfather had spent time at the same jail. And of course for nothing, just sent away cos he was black. And it is dark, and it makes me think. Because I know I do not know, and I can never know. But fuck! I just can not understand people, what is wrong with people?!  All I am saying, I can never believe in a future where everyone gets along because humans are scum.

I liked the tone too, it was truly like someone was telling me a story. A dark sad story . Easy to read, and not long.

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.