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Ghosts Exist! & Why Sing, Unburied, Sing is A Triumph.
A Book review on Jesmyn Ward’s award winning Novel.
When I first picked up Sing, unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, I turned it over in my hands and tried to figure out what it could possibly be about. Instinctively, I did exactly what my third grade English teacher said to do — looked at the cover, read the back, and then read a random page in the middle. I still wasn’t quite sure what I was getting myself into — it didn’t seem like something I would normally choose for myself. Yet, just by reading the first line of the book, I understood that the critical acclaim was well deserved. Ward has the ability to take a plot that might not usually capture a reader and turn it into a journey about family and coming of age with her distinct use of language and rich dialogue. Sing, unburied, Sing is a triumph because of Ward’s understanding of the small details in life on the bigger picture and the hidden impacts of intergenerational trauma.
Sing, unburied, Sing tells the story of a biracial family in Mississippi with a complicated, interwoven family history. Ward tells the story through the perspectives of different characters — Jojo, Leonie, and Richie — throughout the novel as the ghosts of the past become very much real life. On the one side of the family, the mother, Leonie, is struggling with her…
