The descriptions place the reader in the deltas of Mississippi with the sun blazing its curtain call as it drops below the horizon. The grammar-dropping articles, “sleep” for “asleep,” making plural words singular-transports the reader immediately to somewhere in the rural South without making the book difficult to read or having to rely on gimmicky written Southern accents.

The word choice in Sing, Unburied, Sing is also perfect for the book. It’s not surprising to hear that Ward is a professor of creative writing as her spot-on pacing in this book is masterful. This pacing adds to the atmosphere of the climax scene, leaving the reader as breathless and wrung out as Leonie and Jojo themselves. As the mother and child return home, the writing becomes almost frenetic-the language shorter and choppier as the action takes over, the river of words becoming foaming rapids, pulling the reader frantically to the conclusion. Instead the long stretches of road serve as the backdrop for character studies of Jojo and Leonie. There is, in fact, very little in the way of action through the entire 3/4 of the book. When his mother Leonie insists the children come on the trip across the state to pick up their father in Parchman, the language stretches-the words paving the way for the long drive. On the way back, Jojo begins to see the form of a boy named Richie who served time in Parchman with Pop many years ago and whose story only Pop knows the end of.Īs the book opens, Jojo is at home with his Pop, Mam, and little sister Kayla-the pacing slow, but not quite languid, the stuff of long conversations. When they finally reach their destination and return home, Jojo’s father Michael isn’t the only thing the family brings back from Parchman. Instead, he’s being dragged north with his three year-old sister to retrieve his father from the state penitentiary, with a stop along the way for his mother and her friend to retrieve the drug that pulls her farther and farther from her family. Thirteen year-old Jojo wants nothing more today than to be with Pop-for Pop to see him as a man and for his mother Leonie to leave him at home where Mam has only a few days left. The place is the song and I’m going to be part of the song.”

Whether it pull you so close the space between you and it melt and y’all one and it beats like your heart. Ain’t nothing but a field and some woods, but even if the house was still there, it ain’t about that.” Richie rubs his knuckles together. “There’s things you think you know that you don’t.” Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for sending me an advance reader copy of this book. Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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