A review by lizzie_wann
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

5.0

My goodness, talk about exquisite writing. I was knocked out by how good, how beautiful, how heartwrenching the writing was, not to mention the story itself. There are three voices in this story: Jojo, a 13-year-old boy; Leonie, his mom; and Richie, a specter that Jojo can see and hear. He is a ghost from Jojo's grandpa's days at a prison when he was a young man. Jojo is not the only one with this gift of the supernatural, his mom has it, too, but only when she's high. She is visited by her brother, Given, who was shot on a hunting trip.
The story doesn't cover much time in the present, though we get stories of the past told by Pop about his time in prison and the story of Richie. We get the story of Given, and we get some of the story of Pop and Mam, who is now dying of cancer. There is a road trip to the same prison that Pop had been in to retrieve Michael, Jojo's father and Leonie's number one concern (over her two kids). There is meth and abuse, there are supernatural gifts that seem completely normal, there is ache and love, there is death and deliverance. It is a remarkable triumph of what words can do.