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A review by ralovesbooks
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
5.0
Would recommend, but it's rough.
Sing, Unburied, Sing was my first Jesmyn Ward novel*, and it gutted me. I had to pause every so often as I was reading so that I didn't weep openly on the beach. This story is full of pain, and it's beautiful and wrenching. Ugh. I don't have words for it, but I'm really glad I read it. Salvage the Bones is on my Kindle, so I'll get to that soon.
*Her memoir, The Men We Reaped, and the collection of essays she edited, The Fire This Time, are EXCELLENT and requires reading.
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Kidnapped her from her home in the middle of the day. Brought her here, and she learned the boats didn't sink to some watery place, sailed by white ghosts. She learned that bad things happened on that ship, all the way until it docked. That her skin grew around the chains. That her mouth shaped to the muzzle. That she was made into an animal under the hot bright sky, the same sky the rest of her family was under, somewhere far aways, in another world. I knew what that was, to be made a animal. (Pop, talking about his grandmother, page 69)
I hear them four words over and over again when we get in the car and I watch Misty put the package in the pocket under the floorboards. You better take advantage. She said them words as though decisions have no consequences, when of course, it's been easier for her. The way she said it, take advantage, made me want to slap her. Her freckles, her thin pink lips, her blond hair, the stubborn milkiness of her skin; how easy had it been for her, her whole life, to make the world a friend to her? (Leonie, 91)
Sing, Unburied, Sing was my first Jesmyn Ward novel*, and it gutted me. I had to pause every so often as I was reading so that I didn't weep openly on the beach. This story is full of pain, and it's beautiful and wrenching. Ugh. I don't have words for it, but I'm really glad I read it. Salvage the Bones is on my Kindle, so I'll get to that soon.
*Her memoir, The Men We Reaped, and the collection of essays she edited, The Fire This Time, are EXCELLENT and requires reading.
---
Kidnapped her from her home in the middle of the day. Brought her here, and she learned the boats didn't sink to some watery place, sailed by white ghosts. She learned that bad things happened on that ship, all the way until it docked. That her skin grew around the chains. That her mouth shaped to the muzzle. That she was made into an animal under the hot bright sky, the same sky the rest of her family was under, somewhere far aways, in another world. I knew what that was, to be made a animal. (Pop, talking about his grandmother, page 69)
I hear them four words over and over again when we get in the car and I watch Misty put the package in the pocket under the floorboards. You better take advantage. She said them words as though decisions have no consequences, when of course, it's been easier for her. The way she said it, take advantage, made me want to slap her. Her freckles, her thin pink lips, her blond hair, the stubborn milkiness of her skin; how easy had it been for her, her whole life, to make the world a friend to her? (Leonie, 91)