In the fictional Mississippi Gulf Coast town of Bois Sauvage, thirteen-year-old Jojo lives with his toddler sister Kayla and their grandparents, Mam and Pop, while their mother Leonie, struggling with addiction, appears inconsistently. When the children's white father, Michael, is released from Parchman Farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, Leonie drives the family north to collect him. The road journey is narrated in alternating voices — Jojo, Leonie, and Richie, the ghost of a twelve-year-old boy who died at Parchman in Pop's youth. Leonie is also visited by her dead brother Given. Through these hauntings, the novel links present-day addiction, incarceration, interracial family conflict, and a mother dying of cancer to Parchman's history as a penal farm descended from slavery. Ward's third novel won the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction, making her the first woman and first Black American to win that award twice.
Author: Jesmyn Ward · Original publisher: Scribner (New York), 2017
