Author: Jesmyn Ward
Over the last four months I've covered each of the authors who appeared on my original list from 2017. Since that list was created, I realized that there are three more authors who should be on it. Two were additions in 2018, and the other is one who was there all along who I didn't write down for some reason. The first of these is Jesmyn Ward, of whom I said in my my 2018 book summary that I added Jesmyn Ward to the list for future reference.
Jesmyn Ward
That same yearly summary, I described Ward as my authorial crush of 2018. I read all three of her novels, her memoir and a collection she edited in two fevered months, starting with Sing, Unburied, Sing in September in Colorado and concluding with Where the Line Bleeds in in November. In between I read Salvage the Bones on a flight back from Las Vegas in October and Men We Reaped on the flight back from New Orleans. The Fire This Time was in there somewhere too.
Her novels and memoir are all set in the Mississippi of her childhood, in poor African-American communities trying to get by. The first novel is realistic, and then each subsequent one adds more layers of dream and magic. Her memoir is so starkly realistic that you'll likely cry.
Start Here
Her second novel, Salvage the Bones, and her third novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, are both fantastic.
If You Like Those
Her memoir, Men We Reaped, will require a certain amount of empathy to read and appreciate, but I found it compelling. As I said in my summary at the time, It was a moving, depressing view of growing up poor and black in Mississippi, and all the kids who didn't live long enough to try to pull themselves out of poverty as she did..
For Completists
When I read it, I described her first novel, Where the Line Bleeds as She's clearly become a better writer since this first effort, and I wouldn't necessarily start with this book, but it's still a intimate picture of two brothers figuring out adulthood in their small town in Mississippi. I liked it.
She edited The Fire This Time, and I don't even recall which piece she wrote. On balance, it wasn't great.
What I Haven't Read Yet
So far I've read everything published in book format.
Probably Won't
So far, so good.
Jesmyn Ward
That same yearly summary, I described Ward as my authorial crush of 2018. I read all three of her novels, her memoir and a collection she edited in two fevered months, starting with Sing, Unburied, Sing in September in Colorado and concluding with Where the Line Bleeds in in November. In between I read Salvage the Bones on a flight back from Las Vegas in October and Men We Reaped on the flight back from New Orleans. The Fire This Time was in there somewhere too.
Her novels and memoir are all set in the Mississippi of her childhood, in poor African-American communities trying to get by. The first novel is realistic, and then each subsequent one adds more layers of dream and magic. Her memoir is so starkly realistic that you'll likely cry.
Start Here
Her second novel, Salvage the Bones, and her third novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, are both fantastic.
If You Like Those
Her memoir, Men We Reaped, will require a certain amount of empathy to read and appreciate, but I found it compelling. As I said in my summary at the time, It was a moving, depressing view of growing up poor and black in Mississippi, and all the kids who didn't live long enough to try to pull themselves out of poverty as she did..
For Completists
When I read it, I described her first novel, Where the Line Bleeds as She's clearly become a better writer since this first effort, and I wouldn't necessarily start with this book, but it's still a intimate picture of two brothers figuring out adulthood in their small town in Mississippi. I liked it.
She edited The Fire This Time, and I don't even recall which piece she wrote. On balance, it wasn't great.
What I Haven't Read Yet
So far I've read everything published in book format.
Probably Won't
So far, so good.