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A review by eschoeps
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
3.0
Jojo needs to kill something.
Sing, Unburied, Sing opens on our main character's (Jojo) 13th birthday. He follows his grandfather to an animal slaughter, imitating his grandfather's walk and demeanor. His grandfather is his main role model. Pap is a self-sufficient, hard-working rural Mississippi man. Jojo's father is in prison and his mother is a flaky, unreliable drug addict. This leaves Jojo and his sister Kayla staying full-time with their reliable but worn-down Pap and Mam (their maternal grandparents). Worn-down is too gentle of a term for Mam; she's dying of cancer in the bedroom of their shared home. Leonie, Jojo and Kayla's struggling mother, tries her best to be a mother to her children but her best ain't much. When it isn't just sad and ignorant, it's negligent and abusive.
The main thrust of the novel takes place as Leonie absentmindedly grabs Kayla and Jojo to pick up their father Michael from prison. Leonie packs her kids and an bad-behavior enabler friend into a sweaty car for a family reunification road trip. Leonie only has enough effort and love within her body for Michael. Kayla and Jojo are merely consequences of her devotion to Michael. Leonie's point of view is explored in order to give her an adequate amount of sympathy, but this novel's main focus is Jojo's suffering and trauma.
If reading the opening paragraph about Jojo heading off to slaughter an animal with his grandfather on his 13th birthday seems overwrought and overstated to you, feel free to close up this novel now. Melancholic, confused ghosts from the past emerge as a metaphor for past black trauma, slaughter, and enslavement. Mam's cancer is a tool to bring forth reflections on her life as a black female caretaker and herb master. Leonie's ghost is her brother Given (a dramatic name for someone who was "Taken" away too young in a racially motivated shooting). And so on an so forth. The story's main push (the road trip) and the characters, motivations, and interlocking relationships are strong, endearing, and complicated. The overbearing symbols, images, and sideplots are dramatic and wearying. For me, it felt as if there was too much going on. It's both a strength and a weakness to have so much happening, and I was checked out at the end because of it.
This one doesn't end with the road trip; the road trip is the wearying catalyst for everyone to reckon with their ghosts and say goodbye to the old centerpiece of their family (Mam). This novel is deeply admirable but weighty in an unattractive, lopsided manner.
Sing, Unburied, Sing opens on our main character's (Jojo) 13th birthday. He follows his grandfather to an animal slaughter, imitating his grandfather's walk and demeanor. His grandfather is his main role model. Pap is a self-sufficient, hard-working rural Mississippi man. Jojo's father is in prison and his mother is a flaky, unreliable drug addict. This leaves Jojo and his sister Kayla staying full-time with their reliable but worn-down Pap and Mam (their maternal grandparents). Worn-down is too gentle of a term for Mam; she's dying of cancer in the bedroom of their shared home. Leonie, Jojo and Kayla's struggling mother, tries her best to be a mother to her children but her best ain't much. When it isn't just sad and ignorant, it's negligent and abusive.
The main thrust of the novel takes place as Leonie absentmindedly grabs Kayla and Jojo to pick up their father Michael from prison. Leonie packs her kids and an bad-behavior enabler friend into a sweaty car for a family reunification road trip. Leonie only has enough effort and love within her body for Michael. Kayla and Jojo are merely consequences of her devotion to Michael. Leonie's point of view is explored in order to give her an adequate amount of sympathy, but this novel's main focus is Jojo's suffering and trauma.
If reading the opening paragraph about Jojo heading off to slaughter an animal with his grandfather on his 13th birthday seems overwrought and overstated to you, feel free to close up this novel now. Melancholic, confused ghosts from the past emerge as a metaphor for past black trauma, slaughter, and enslavement. Mam's cancer is a tool to bring forth reflections on her life as a black female caretaker and herb master. Leonie's ghost is her brother Given (a dramatic name for someone who was "Taken" away too young in a racially motivated shooting). And so on an so forth. The story's main push (the road trip) and the characters, motivations, and interlocking relationships are strong, endearing, and complicated. The overbearing symbols, images, and sideplots are dramatic and wearying. For me, it felt as if there was too much going on. It's both a strength and a weakness to have so much happening, and I was checked out at the end because of it.
This one doesn't end with the road trip; the road trip is the wearying catalyst for everyone to reckon with their ghosts and say goodbye to the old centerpiece of their family (Mam). This novel is deeply admirable but weighty in an unattractive, lopsided manner.