Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Some novels are so personal that it takes a while to “unpack” what exactly is going on with the author. In Sing, Unburied, Sing, I was unmoved and somewhat disappointed when I started reading. It seemed to me that the “voices” of the characters were distinct and profoundly conceived, but then…nothing happened. Oh, I know, literary fiction…nothing is supposed to happen, right? I don’t hold that opinion. I think literature has a story to tell, regardless.
By the time I was halfway into this book, the “story” began to slowly emerge. It took that long to build and to “become,” much like the ghostly family members who step into the pages and sweep an almost pedestrian slice of life into a glorious and visual indictment of America’s racism and the legacies of poverty, and the power of love. The incredible skill of the author is in her willingness to allow the characters to weave in and out of “reality” and bring the dead alive to sing their truths in the present. The living see with the spirits, and sing too with the emotional aftermath and the devastation of violence and injustice. It made me thank myself for not giving up on this book early.
Readers take and make their own experience from “personal” novels…novels written not to entertain, not for escapism, but for a connection “in the blood” and in the heart. That is the “story.” This is one of those books. My own life rises in the reading, sings its own songs, deals with its own ghosts, stretches to bridge the gaps in human experience and makes me the wiser for it.
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