Award-Winner/ Literary Fiction Genre

Sing, Unburied, Sing- Jesmyn Ward
2017 National Book Award


Synopsis

This is the story of a family that is on the verge of collapse, worn down over time by tragedy, poverty, addiction, and imprisonment.  Leonie, mother of 13-year-old JoJo and 3-year-old Kayla, is an addict through and through, mostly due to the murder of her younger brother.   She is addicted to coke, meth, and most of all, to Michael, the imprisoned father of her children.  She is resentful of the presence of her children, but at the same time aches for them and is angry that they are not connected with her.  But she is incapable of seeing past Michael, who is perhaps her greatest addiction, in order to get close to her children.  Both children are keenly aware, to the point where her 3-year-old daughter clings to her brother for life, creating a dynamic where Jojo is both brother and parent to this small child.

Jojo is a young boy who has had to grow up too quickly.  His only positive role models and protectors are his grandparents, Leonie's parents, and they are aging and ill.  He lives in a constant state in uncertainty, insecurity, and sometimes hunger.  His main priority is always keeping Kayla safe and sheltered from the volatile, abusive nature of his addict mother. He is facing an uncertain future with the release of his father from prison.

This story is haunted. There are ghosts everywhere.  Leonie sees the ghost of her murdered brother Given (whose ghost she calls "Given-not-Given") when she is high.  JoJo starts to see the ghost of Richie, a boy whom he only knows through the stories his grandfather told him of when he (the grandfather) and Richie were in prison together as youths-the same prison Michael found himself in.

When Michael is released from prison, Leonie and her friend decide to take Jojo and Kayla on a road trip to Mississippi to get him.  However, this is not the typical summer road trip story, of some fun along with some misadventure.  It is a literal and figurative hot mess of drugs, sickness, and a run-in with the law.  BY the time they arrive back to Louisiana, the reader is relieved, that maybe now the characters will get some respite from the drama.  However, coming home finds Mam on her deathbed, and Michael's parents even more unwilling to accept him, his black wife, and their children of mixed race.  And now that they are back home, both Leonie and Jojo have been saddled with important, life-altering tasks.  Jojo's will likely force him to grow up even quicker.  Leonie's offers her a chance for redemption, but both the reader and Leonie herself are skeptical that she will be able to rise to the challenge. 

This is not an easy book to read.  "Literary Fiction presents a world in which there are no easy choices and no clear-cut answers." (Saricks, 181)  Even if everyone in the story, from this point forward, goes through life and decision-making with the best of intentions, their past wounds and trauma will follow them all their lives, much like the ghosts that they see during desperate times. 



Elements of Award-Winner / Literary Fiction Genre

Tone/Mood-  "The tone of Literary Fiction is often darker, as befits the serious themes with which much of it is concerned." (Saricks, 182)   Filled to the brim with ghosts and dark magic, this book can only be described as haunting.  It hangs in the air long after it is over, like the image of the scaled, winged bird that soars above the characters, that periodically turns into the ominous white snake that wakes the dead from their slumber. 

Characterization- "...introspective, in-depth character studies allow readers to watch them develop." (Saricks, 180)  We spend A LOT of time inside the head's of these characters.  We know their inner-most fears, thoughts, and desires, and they are both static and evolving.  Some of these things have always been and will always be with the characters, but new thoughts, feelings, and even resolutions eventually arrive.  "Secondary characters often play a crucial role (Saricks, 180).  This is especially the case with Richie, who doesn't really arrive in a active form until the middle of the story.  He is literally a ghost, but one with purpose and a mission that only Jojo can help him fulfill. 

Story Line-  "These are novels that explore universal dilemmas, and the truths they expose lift the stories from the bounds of subject classification." (Saricks, 181) While the actual story is essentially driven by Michael's release from prison, Leonie's addiction, Mam's illness, and Jojo's struggle to hold himself and his baby sister together, are born out of what it means to be black in America, particularly in the south.  Ward doesn't shy away from race issues.  Leonie is black, Michael is white, and Michael's father is deeply racist; we get a whiff of police brutality against young black men; there are constant, subtle reminders that being black and poor is a systemic challenge that Jojo will likely never fully escape.  In an earlier non-fiction work The Men We Reaped, Ward addresses the fact that she lost 5 young men in her life, and it's clear that she is still bringing attention to these issues in her fiction.

Frame/Setting- Summer, post-Katrina Louisiana.  The heat plays a big role in the story, and creates excruciating complications from seemingly unquenchable thirst to the smell of vomit in a car.  But apart from the heat, the setting of the American south, in any era, sets the stage for any racial issues to be amplified.  Post-Katrina is important, as Ward calls it by its name, and we are made subtly aware that any problems that existed before Katrina have probably been exacerbated are are more systemic than ever.  Furthermore, the haunted feeling seems much more plausible in the south than in any other place in America.

Style/Language-  Colloquial language is an essential element to the story.  Ward does something incredible with language, however, and that is to give all characters the same poetic inner monologue, regardless of their actual speech.  "....elegantly written, lyrical, and perhaps layered..." (Saricks, 179) are all elements of literary fiction style and language.  Ward seems to have really gotten her sea legs with lyrical, poetic writing style.  In her previous book Salvage the Bones, one could see this talent budding to the surface.  In this book, it has broken through and blossomed into a National Book Award Winner.

Pacing- "Literary fiction is almost never deemed as fast-paced (Saricks, 182) The author takes singular moments and painstakingly draws them out, almost in slow motion, so that the reader acutely experiences suffering along with the narrator.  While there is some time-jumping through recollections of the characters, it is a fairly linear story, and actually takes place over a very short amount of time.  However, by the end, we feel as if we have been with this family for a lifetime because we have spent so much time within very intimate moments of their lives.  Slow pacing here creates a thoroughly immersive experience, one that sticks with the reader long after the story has ended.


Read-alikes

   The Little Friend- Donna Tartt


  White Teeth- Zadie Smith


  The Underground Railroad- Colson Whitehead