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Shop nowSing, Unburied, Sing
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“Sing, Unburied, Sing is a dark and gorgeous song of love and heartbreak, haunting and tragic and disorienting in its timelessness. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill anchors Ward's tale to Mississippi today, which is almost indistinguishable from its notorious yesterday, a present and past (ironically) made more alive in the novel by ghosts and where everyone suffers from the cancers of buried sins. On Jojo's 13th birthday, while Mam is dying and Pop struggles to keep everyone safe, Leonie plans a road trip to the prison to pick up Michael, Jojo and baby Kayla's father. It's The Odyssey meets the Delta blues meets William Faulkner and Toni Morrison and some ineffable something that is Jesmyn Ward's own magic.”
— Sara Hinckley • Hudson Booksellers
WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD and A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A finalist for the Kirkus Prize, Andrew Carnegie Medal, Aspen Words Literary Prize, and a New York Times bestseller, this majestic, stirring, and widely praised novel from two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward, the story of a family on a journey through rural Mississippi, is a ātour de forceā (O, The Oprah Magazine) and a timeless work of fiction that is destined to become a classic.
Jesmyn Wardās historic second National Book Awardāwinner is āperfectly poised for the momentā (The New York Times), an intimate portrait of three generations of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. āWardās writing throbs with life, grief, and loveā¦ this book is the kind that makes you ache to return to itā (Buzzfeed).
Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesnāt lack in fathers to study, chief among them his Black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent White father, Michael, who is being released from prison; his absent White grandfather, Big Joseph, who wonāt acknowledge his existence; and the memories of his dead uncle, Given, who died as a teenager.
His mother, Leonie, is an inconsistent presence in his and his toddler sisterās lives. She is an imperfect mother in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is Black and her childrenās father is White. She wants to be a better mother but canāt put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. Simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when sheās high, Leonie is embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances.
When the childrenās father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another thirteen-year-old boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love.
Rich with Wardās distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic and unforgettable family story and āan odyssey through rural Mississippiās past and presentā (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.Ā She is the historic winnerāfirst woman and first Black Americanāof two National Book Awards for Fiction forĀ Sing, Unburied, SingĀ (2017) andĀ Salvage the BonesĀ (2011). She is also the author of the novelĀ Where the Line BleedsĀ and the memoirĀ Men We Reaped,Ā which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.
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