Selected works by Jesmyn Ward

It’s always exciting when I find an author whose writing makes me want to burn through his or her bibliography like a dangerous fever. I grabbed the three books I could lay my hands on at the library, and dove head first into Sing, Unburied, Sing, I followed with Salvage the Bones, and concluded with The Men We Reaped. Each story is powerful and compelling, but as a body of work, they are a vivid testimony of growing up Black and poor in the rural south.

Salvage the Bones is Jesmyn Ward’s second novel, and a visceral snap shot of a family, which itself is a microcosm of the greater systemic disenfranchisement of Blacks in the book’s fictitious town of Bois Sauvage. Told over twelve days in rural Mississippi, and climaxing as Hurricane Katrina moves inland, Esch’s story will break your heart. Fourteen year-old Esch “grew up” (as  a child who has only ever known deprivation and struggle can) putting the needs of her brothers first: Randall (a serious basketball star, already proving to be a far better father to his little brother Junior, than their dad ever has been), Skeetah (who, while trying to “make them know,” ends up finding the love of his life…of a kind), and their baby brother Junior (a sweet boy, the last boy, the birthing of whom killed their mother). Junior, whose clinginess binds them, but also reminds them of how fierce and tenuous they all feel without their mother. Within this backdrop, while a hurricane threatens on the horizon, Esch struggles with a secret that scares her more than calamity.

In Sing, Unburied, Sing, we meet a thirteen-year-old boy named Jojo, a young boy growing up in a house/family that is haunted by racism, the poison of it spreading to each member of the family like a cancer, body, mind, and soul. Jojo is at that age where he is dreaming about being a man. And those dreams take on the straight lines of Pap, Junior’s grandpa. Junior, his baby sister Kayla, and their mom Leonie all live with Pap and Mam. When Leonie decides to take Jojo and Kayla on a three day odyssey to pick up her man Michael from prison.(Michael is, to a much lesser degree, their father. But Jojo learned early what baby Kayla is just now feeling: Michael has eyes and ears only for Leoni.) Without Pap’s imperious presence on the trip, Jojo feels unmoored, and worries that Leoni can’t keep them safe. Running both parallel and through Jojo’s experiences, are Richie’s. But the same eye Jojo turned so sweetly upon Kayla, sweaty and hot on a too-long car ride back from the prison, becomes baleful when it lands upon Richie, slumped impossibly on the floorboard beside him.  Well, maybe it’s not so impossible if you understand that Richie is a ghost that roams forward and back in time, tethered to a plantation that had many a PR facelift during its time. The owners may change in name, but never in deed, and those fields may now be growing Parchment Penitentiary cotton instead of that old slavery cotton, but it’s the same damn field. And the Black men and boys, rounded up for charges ranging from petty to imagined, as prisoners, may now be legally yoked to the field once again. The master/jailer’s face may change, but the same enslavement flows through and around time like a snake eating itself.

I finished my holiday reading with The Men We Reap. This volume of Jesmyn Ward’s memoirs tracks the fatal arcs of five boys’ lives. Stars that dropped right out of her family’s sky. Jesmyn begins her telling with the freshest loss, family friend, Demon Cook. Cook was the boy from an unbroken family, a dedicated provider and conscientious neighbor, who was murdered on his front lawn. A crime still unsolved. He was preceded in death by Charles Joseph Martin, a lithe acrobatic marvel and chivalrous and beloved cousin. Death came calling next for Ronald Way Lizana, a dazzling and charming friend; and lastly, Jesmyn discusses the loss of her little brother, Joshua Adam Dedeaux. Alternating with each heartbreaking memorial, are autobiographical chapters chronicling the history of Jesmyn and her family. She paints a bleak picture of what a young boy can expect when he’s young, Black, and poor in rural America. She describes in haunting detail what it looked like when the light dimmed in the eyes of a brother, a friend, or a loved one as they realized, with their eyes wide open, that the American Dream isn’t an option for every sleeper.

Reviews by Jennifer Wilson

wilsonj@delphilibrary.org

Warden's Daughter by Jerry Spinelli

Reading books together as a family is a great way to bond with each other and have fun. Instead of having a family movie night, have a night together where you share a new story and read together. The Warden’s Daughter is a book that your entire family can enjoy together but is more age-appropriate for upper elementary.

Growing up at a prison would make for a strange childhood, but Cammie O’Reilly spends her time around the prison, and has even gotten to know some of the female inmates personally. When she was just a baby, there was an accident that resulted in the death of Cammie's mother. This story shows Cammie transform into a preteen with only having a father for guidance. Cammie does have some adult female influences in her life through the inmates and, one in particular looks after her on a daily basis. She tries to get attached and form a motherly bond with her nanny, but it does not turn out the way she desires. A girl needs a mother figure in her life and Cammie has tried desperately to fill that void, sometimes ending in disastrous outcomes.

This story has humor, heartbreak, and mystery. I grew to love Cammie early in the book and was intrigued by her story of growing up in a prison. You get to meet some of the inmates and they are all lively, likable characters that you want to learn more about. This coming-of-age novel was well-written and a story that I could not put down until the last word. Cammie provides narration that will keep the reader wanting to learn more about the Hancock County Prison and meet every inmate.  I recommend this book to fans of Jerry Spinelli’s other works, and for families who enjoy reading chapter books together. This book, and the audiobook, are available in the children’s department.

-Lauren

Fun Home: a family tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Fun Home is a graphic novel memoir centered around Bechdel’s father and their sometimes close, sometimes strained relationship. Bechdel’s father, Bruce, was a passionate restorer of their Victorian home, a high school English teacher, a part-time funeral home director, and a man who tried to hide his true self from friends and family. His relationship with his wife and children was often strained, and when he commits suicide he and Alison are barely on speaking terms. While the subject is often bleak, Bechdel has a knack for finding both humor and beauty in difficult times.

Before picking up Fun Home, I had not read a graphic novel since middle school. While I enjoy a number of comic strips, I never understood the idea of an entire book told in comic form. Now I cannot imagine this story being told any other way. The imagery and languages work together to immerse the reader so deeply into Bechdel’s life that it’s impossible not to feel the complicated mix of emotions she herself felt for her father: adoration, disgust, trust, betrayal, love, and heartbreak. Woven throughout are comparisons of her family members to characters from literature especially Daedalus, the ancient Greek inventor, and his son Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun. In Fun Home, Alison and Bruce take turns as parent and child to one another, at times pushing each other to great heights, and at others falling into the depths. And much like the tales of Greek mythology, Fun Home is a tale that sticks with you long after the story has been told.

Fun Home has won a number of awards including the Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work, Lambda Literary Awards for Biography / Autobiography, and the Stonewall Book Awards: Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award. In 2013, it was adapted for the stage winning the 2015 Tony Award for Best Musical, Best Original Score, and others.  

- Portia Kapraun

Winter Street by Elin Hilderbrand

In Winter Street we are introduced to Kelley and Mitzie Quinn who run the Winter Street Inn on Nantucket Island.  Between them they have four grown children, an ex-wife, and a lover.  The story runs from December 23 to Christmas Evening as the family and their significant others gather.  Within the group, there are multiple issues going on, leading to a wide swath of emotions ranging from sheer joy to utter agony.  One might say that it is a bit unbelievable that so much drama could be happening at once.

It wasn't a happily ever after ending but it kept my spirits high.   The characters were all distinctly individualistic ones.  The story lines and setting were credible and the warmth of the season crept through the book.                                                                      

THE WAITING

By Cathy LaGrow.  A true and amazing story of a woman, who when she was a young girl of 16, was raped by a stranger.  The young woman was Minka DeYoung and it was the 1920's. Surely a different time for a young woman to find herself violated and then pregnant.  But this story is not all horrifying as this one act surely was, because Minka was a woman of prayer and filled with an enormously huge love for the child she bore. Minka gave her baby, a beautiful girl, up for adoption and went back to her life as normal... but it wasn't normal. It wasn't the same anymore. The daughter was always on the mother's mind, was always a missing piece to happiness.  

A story of an amazing woman and the power of prayer and a story of beauty for ashes because seventy seven years later, mother and daughter are reunited and God had a plan all along.  This story will make you cry and it will make you rejoice.  It is indeed a testimony to a loving God, who is involved intricately in our lives.  This is the Faith-Inspired Book Club pick for June 2015 at the Delphi Public Library.