Review | Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Sing, Unburied, Sing is one of those books that hits nearly all the Big Themes that run timeless across the span of literature: family, love, race, gender. It's a book that leaves you with lingering impressions, a book your mind can't quite completely wrap itself around weeks after you've shut its covers. Above all, it's a book that makes you think about the relationships that make up the fabric of the world around us, each a tenuous thread that connects one person to another, and another, and so forth until we've created a tapestry of human bonds.
The novel centers around a family living on a farm in Mississippi: Jojo, who has just turned thirteen, his toddler sister Kayla, their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and, at times, Leonie, their drug-addicted mother. When the white father of Leonie's children is released from prison, she takes her children up on a journey to the prison to pick him up. During the trip, Jojo begins to learn more about the loss that hangs heavy over their family, and the way in which they are haunted by the pain and suffering of their collective history.
Admittedly, the plot of this novel isn't the most action-packed there is. The heart of Sing, Unburied, Sing lies instead in the thoughts and emotions of its characters as they grapple with the ghosts of their pasts -- both literally and figuratively. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by the ghost of her dead brother, and Jojo is compelled to look back at Pop's past to set his family free from the darkness that haunts them. As the title suggests, Ms. Ward invokes the dead, and in particular those who have died unjustly, unburied and forgotten.
Through the perspectives of Jojo and Leonie, readers are given two characters through which they encounter these ghosts, not only the ghosts of their racial lineage but also those of their warring fears and desires. Both Jojo and Leonie are characters who want to be loved, yet are unable to be the source of love that the other so desperately needs. As a result, Jojo steps in to fill the shoes of his virtually absentee parents, as exemplified by the way in which he becomes the mother figure for Kayla. It is also telling that the novel begins with the scene of Pop enlisting Jojo's help to slaughter a goat to feed the family -- a rite of passage, of sorts, for a young man on the cusp of adolescence.
But, to me, it was Leonie's point-of-view that was more compelling for its complexity and depth. Though we see from the onset of the book that Leonie's outward interests lie almost solely in her drugs and in Michael, Jojo and Kayla's father, we come to realize as the story unfolds that this image of a "bad mother" is more nuanced and complicated than assumed. Leonie, too, wants to be loved by her children and is hurt by Kayla's refusal to be held by her favour of Jojo, and, to an extent, wants to be a source of love for them. Yet she recognizes that she's too selfish, and that she has a limited store of love that she wholly directs towards Michael. The warring emotions of love and guilt make Leonie a complex and compelling character to follow, embodying the strained relationships within families and the innate, human need to love and be loved in return.
There's a lot more to be said about this novel, including the racial tensions that underlie the storyline, and the lyrical writing style that evokes ancient, ritualistic songs rooted in the natural world. In the end, however, the main melody of Sing, Unburied, Sing is rooted in the emotional ties that bond people to one another, offering itself as both a paean and a eulogy of hope, suffering and survival in our collective history.
Rating: 4/5
