Best of the Best Book Club: "Sing, Unburied, Sing" by Jesmyn Ward

The Coronado Public Library's Best of the Best Book Club meets regularly on the 4th Tuesday of each month to discuss books that have won major awards. Receive reminder emails about our meeting by registering below. Registration is not required.

For our February meeting, we will discuss the 2017 National Book Award Winner Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, a majestic and unforgettable family story and an odyssey through rural Mississippi’s past and present. 

About Sing, Unburied, Sing: 

Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesn’t lack in fathers to study, chief among them his Black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent White father, Michael, who is being released from prison; his absent White grandfather, Big Joseph, who won’t acknowledge his existence; and the memories of his dead uncle, Given, who died as a teenager.

His mother, Leonie, is an inconsistent presence in his and his toddler sister’s lives. She is an imperfect mother in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is Black and her children’s father is White. She wants to be a better mother but can’t put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. Simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high, Leonie is embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances.

When the children’s father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another thirteen-year-old boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love.

Place the book on hold on the Coronado Public Library catalog by clicking here or check out the e-book or audiobook on the Libby or CloudLibrary apps.