Review: Sing, Unburied, Sing

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Like most people who read it, I loved Salvage the Bones. I think it announced the possibility of a major talent, someone we’ll have with us for the next few decades, someone who can “sing” the African-American experience with new words but echoes of the same tune that Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison laid down. No, it isn’t fair to compare anyone to both of those two, arguably among the handful of greatest writers we’ve produced as a culture. Still, Ward is so good – in Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing – that it’s not a complete stretch. We’ll have to see how her work ages and what more she can do, but – three novels in – she remains in the conversation for being one of the greats herself.

I read Salvage as a powerful search for a mother figure, whether the dog giving birth in the stunning opening scene, the lost mother whose fragmented lore guides our protagonist, or the towering and feminine Katrina bearing does as a devastating hurricane. This one has many echoes of that same question – here, Mam is dying when we meet her, and Leonie is simply never there for Jojo – but I think it’s reasonable to characterize this one as about the search for a suitable father figure.

There is Pop, of course, and he’s a powerful possibility. This opens with Jojo watching Pop and learning how to slaughter a goat, but really learning how to be a man who has to do what it takes to keep his family safe and fed.

But Pop is handcuffed as well. If Jojo is his heir, there is still a yawning gap where the missing generation should be. There’s Given, Pop’s son and Jojo’s uncle, killed (or murdered) before he could grow into manhood himself. There’s Michael, Jojo’s white father, who’s always distracted by his petty schemes and the jail time that follows and who simply doesn’t know how to be a father yet. There’s Michael’s father, Big Joseph, who’s so blinded by racism that he can’t understand how to parent. There’s even Al, Michael’s lawyer, who rescues the family only to put them into just as much jeopardy when he involves them again with meth.

And, perhaps finally, there is Richie, one of the two ghost figures (Given being the other) who stand as young men who might have been fathers had they had the opportunity to grow to adulthood. Both also stand as Pop’s first “children.” Pop did what he could to save the young Richie, but Richie was too weak, and Pop not yet come into his capacity yet. [SPOILER: And, of course, we eventually learn that Pop benefitted from Richie’s death in that he was allowed to leave the awful Parchman prison early for having shown he could obey the authority of the warden by tracking Richie.]

The hope here, then, is always Jojo, a boy who is seeking a way toward a life that will allow him to care for Kayla and the others. He’s innocent and loving, and all that will keep him from full fatherhood is the almost overwhelming work of growing into adulthood. With Pop’s help, and with wisdom from the dying Mam, he’s already carrying more of a burden than a boy should. But he’s a figure of deep hope, and he stands as a possibility that this African-American world is slowly healing itself.

If I had to choose, I’d still prefer Salvage the Bones because that one is more focused both in its inquiry and its characters. Still, I can see the case for this one since it’s more ambitious in the way it considers three full generations with glimpses of before and after.

Either way, Ward is clearly a writer to continue watching. She writes with real and sustained grace, and she explores questions that, without resolving into easy answers, nevertheless make us feel a little wiser for having considered them.


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