My first book by Jesmyn Ward and what a beautiful writer. Her lyrical prose takes on, alternately, the tones of a road novel and a ghost story.

It starts off a little slow, with no sign of a story line but after the first couple of chapters, the amazing writing and deep characters really sink you in.

The novel journeys through Mississippi’s past and present providing a portrait of family and a story of hope and struggle narrated through the voices of 13 year old JoJo, Leonie and Richie (taking the form of a disturbed spirit).

Set post–Hurricane Katrina, the novel resonates at a time when the devastation of Hurricane Harvey and the protests and violence in Charlottesville see many Americans returning to missed lessons about racial identity and the Old South.

Throughout, there’s no escaping Ward’s political rendering of American history. She uses a haunting, magical-realist style to masterfully warp two of life’s most inflexible realities: time and death.
Her book seems to ask whether a family or a nation can atone for inequities that remain well and alive.

A lyrical masterpiece