“Sing, Unburied, Sing" by Jesmyn Ward.
I fed this novel to myself in a lazy river of consumption, taking it in slowly like the melted honey at the bottom of a cup of tea. Often drawing on themes of water, it feels appropriate to compare this novel to a river, for how it wends through past and present, roads and marshes, complex characterizations, all in fluid and natural movement. I will admit, there were moments where I felt that the push of the narrative stalled, but this was made up entirely by Ward’s rich language, painting evocative pictures of lush surroundings and troubled love. In keeping with my parallel, stagnant waters often teem with bursting life.
With influences from the Odyssey, Ward sets her journey through costal Mississippi and up north to the very real Parchman prison. Her descriptions are stunning- I could feel the heavy humidity, the hum of that damp heat, could see the vibrant greenery in all of its hazy richness. Painted within the luxuriant and weighty nature, Ward weaves a haunting (and honest) history of the landscape. “Sing, Unburied, Sing” shines a light on the brutal realities of our collective past, and how in informs the present day. Modern slavery in American prisons, the over-incarceration of Black men, and the history (and present state) of lynching are brought into acute focus, and Ward calls our attention to a bleeding wound in American history that still cuts deep in our present. This story is told in both intimate and broad scope. The themes are all encompassing, but as readers we spend much of our time in a tight car with a tense family. We are able to explore how their dynamic is informed by and interacts with the wider message of the story, written in brilliant clarity.
This book refers to itself, in part, as a ghost story, but one thing I appreciated was how this looked in practice. Often, books that evoke elements of the supernatural are bogged down in phantasmagoric mud (real substack fans know I love this word). While I think this works well in many a novel, it would not have served “Sing, Unburied, Sing.” Instead, the ghosts in this story are bright and lucid, keeping the reader aware that the stories they are representing are real historical and current horrors. This novel doesn’t devolve into shimmering, confusing chaos, like many ghost stories do. Instead, the ghosts and spirits that drift through the pages provide even greater precision, greater depth, to the message of the book.
This was also a book about family, struggling under the weight of historical and generational trauma- as I said, both intimate and broad. One theme I felt heavy in my read is that of what love and care look like, and how it can hurt us in different ways. Jojo our 13 year old protaganist, cares for his 3 year old sister Kayla fiercely, but sometimes in ways she can’t understand. In one particularly emotional scene, Kayla has been sick, but Jojo has to make her throw up, for her own good. River and Richie, two young boys brought together in the confines of Parchman, care for each other, with River’s final act of care causing more pain than he could have anticipated at the time. Leonie, the mother of Jojo, is complex and damaged, unable to think of her children over her own troubled past. Michael, her husband, destroys them both in the way loves her. In a climactic scene, Leonie gives her first and only real act of care in the whole novel- and it breaks her, rather than the person she has given the kindness to. The family at the center in “Sing, Unburied, Sing” is broken in some ways, burdened in many, and filled with love across all spectrums of what it may look like. This book is a poignant demonstration of how family bonds exist and warp and tighten under the weight of the world, sometimes coming out stronger and other times becoming unrecognizable.
I’m unsure if what I’ve written is the most cogent interpretation or explanation of this book and my feelings about it, and I know I’ll be spending forever tying to do this story justice. Of all my reviews, this one has taken the longest. It is an epic. It is intimate and all encompassing. It is ephemeral music. It is a ghost story haunted by the tangible and truthful. It is full of pain, of love, of centuries of story, taking place over a few days. It is something to be sat with, digested. I recommend to all.
Next on the list? Cloud Cuckoo Land, recommended to me by my mom and sister. I hope to weep and weep and weep.
Love,
Emmy