Jesmyn Ward

Biography 

Born on April 1st, 1977 Berkeley, California. Jesmyn Ward is an American novelist who won the National Book Reward not just once but twice. She is the one and only African American woman to win twice. She won the National Book Reward of Fiction in the year 2011 for her second novel Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing in 2017. She became a writer after the death of her younger brother who was killed by a drunk driver to honor his memory. She is also an English Professor at Tulane University, where she holds the Andrew W. Mellon Professorship in the Humanities. In 2008, she had given up on writing and enrolled in nursing programs but changed her mind. 

Synopsis

Salvage the bones (2011) is a “fiction, is a taut, wilt novel, smartly plotted and voluptuously written. It feels fresh and urgent, but it's an ancient, archetypal tale”. (1) The story is about a family in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi in the 12 days leading up to Hurricane Katrina. They are a poor black family surging on what they can salvage and then sell it. The father is an alcoholic resulting in the children having to fend for themselves. Salvage the Bones “is never wrong when is comes to suffering. Sorrow and pain I am presented as especially ennobling. They exist to be endured — until the next Katrina revives to “cut us to the bone” and like every good myth, at its heart, the book is salvific; it wants to teach you how to wait out the storm and swing to safety. (1) Her other book Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) is a powerful novel about a family reflecting on their past and present with the racism in America. “Sing, Unhurried, Sing has the haunted quality of an afterlife; its characters seem to be stuck in an epilogue” (2) Their lives are deeply affected by injustices that happen in the region because they are a black family. They confront ghosts from the past with a road trip they take that reflects their past and the uncertainty in their future. Many 

                                

Reviews 

- A lot of things seem difficult to overcome and seem impossible in real life but they seem all defeatable when written by Ward “Sing, Unburied, Sing is many things a road novel, a slender epic of three generations, and the ghosts that haunt them, and a portrait of what ordinary folks in dire circumstances cleave as well as what they — and perhaps we all — are trying to outrun” (3)  

- Many people like this because of how real this story feels how authentic it is “A big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds, and a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty Salvage the Bones is muscles with poverty, revelatory, and real.” (4)

Personal Reflection 

When first reaching Jesmyn Ward, I was mostly searching for a regular writer. But when I read her back story and saw how far she has gotten it really made me want to write about her. She was bullied by classmates in both public and private schools. I was really impressed by her because right before graduating college and getting her master's degree, her brother gets killed and the killer doesn't even get charged. I wouldn't had the strength to continue that last year if my blood would've died. What I really like is how she speaks about today's racism in her stories and expands our understanding about the devastation of Katrina. She is very fearless with her words and passionate making her stories so intense and real. I would recommend Ward work to readers who like to feel a connection with the story and characters, and those who like to speak on injustices and aren't fearful. She recently lost her husband Brandon Miller at the age of 33 and almost stopped writing because of it. It deeply affected her and felt like her world collapsed but continued in his honor. 

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/books/review/salvage-the-bones-by-jesmyn-ward-book-review.html

2. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/11/jesmyn-wards-haunted-novel-of-the-gulf-coast

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/books/review/tracy-k-smith-on-sing-unburied-sing-jesmyn-ward.html

4. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/salvage-the-bones-9781608196265/