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A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting.
As the twelve days that make up the novel's framework yield to their dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family-motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce-pulls itself up to face another day. A big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds, and a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, Salvage the Bones is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.
Praise for Where the Line Bleeds:
"A fresh new voice in American literature, Ward unflinchingly describes a world full of despair but not devoid of hope." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[A] remarkable first novel …a lyrical yet clear-eyed portrait of a rural South and an African-American reality that are rarely depicted."-Boston Globe
"A richly textured tale … Like the best fiction, it creates its own world." -Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
NPR Bestseller
IndieBound National Indie Bestseller
San Francisco Chronicle Best Books of 2011
Kansas City Star Top 100 Books of the Year
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Best of the South 2011
Shelf Awareness, Reviewer’s Choice, Top 10 of 2011
More.com, Hottest Fall Novels
Oprah.com, Books to Watch and Book of the Week
Huffington Post, The Best Upcoming Books
Vogue.com, Fall Blockbuster Fiction
"The first great novel about Katrina." —Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe
"[A] searing, understated, and big-hearted novel." —Salon
"Salvage the Bones is an intense book, with powerful, direct prose that dips into poetic metaphor . . . We are immersed in Esch’s world, a world in which birth and death nestle close, where there is little safety except that which the siblings create for each other. That close-knit familial relationship is vivid and compelling, drawn with complexities and detail." —Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times
"I’ve just read [Salvage the Bones] and it’ll be a long time before its magic wears off...Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretention, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy . . . A palpable sense of desire and sorrow animates every page here . . . Salvage the Bones has the aura of a classic about it." —Ron Charles, Washington Post
"A timeless tale of a family that regains its humanity in the face of incalculable loss." —Gina Webb, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Jesmyn Ward has claimed her place both as a contemporary witness of life in the rural south and as a descendant of its great originals." —Nicholas Delbanco, author of Sherbrookes and Lastingness: The Art of Old Age
"The narrator’s voice sparks with beauty as it urges the reader through this moving story set in the shadow of Katrina." — Zoë Triska, Huffington Post
"Jesmyn Ward has written . . . the first Katrina-drenched fiction I’d press upon readers now." —Karen R. Long, Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
"Ward’s redolent prose conjures the magic and menace of the southern landscape." —Elizabeth Hoover, Dallas Morning News
"The novel’s power comes from the dread of the approaching storm and a pair of violent climaxes. The first is a dog fight, an appalling spectacle given emotional depth by Skeetah’s love for the pit bull China (their bond is the strongest and most affecting in the book). When the hurricane strikes, Ms. Ward endows it, too, with attributes maternal and savage: ‘Katrina is the mother we will remember until the next mother with large merciless hands, committed to blood, comes.’ " —Wall Street Journal
"From its lyrical yet visceral first scene, this novel had me, and I hardly dared to put it down for fear a spell might be broken. But it never was or will be; such are the gifts of this writer." —Laura Kasischke, author of In a Perfect World
"Without a false note . . . A superbly realized work of fiction that, while Southern to the bone, transcends its region to become universal." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"With her tough, tense and taut tale of one rural family’s bitter and bloody fight for survival in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina, [Ward] has secured herself a place among such other great Southern writers as Flannery O’Connor, Harper Lee and William Faulkner. Ward’s electrifying, exhilarating, edge-of-your-seat second novel, Salvage the Bones, takes us into the naked heart of one Southern family struggling for both survival and identity. With prose both powerful and poetic, Ward has imagined an unforgettable family." —CityBeat (Cincinnati)
"Ward uses fearless, toughly lyrical language to convey this family’s close-knit tenderness [and] the sheer bloody-minded difficulty of rural African American life . . . It’s an eye-opening heartbreaker that ends in hope . . . You owe it to yourself to read this book." —Library Journal (starred review)
"Few works of fiction can capture the heart-wrenching emotions attached to a natural disaster, and fewer still can do it in a way that seems palpable and fresh. Salvage the Bones, the latest by rising star Jesmyn Ward, accomplishes this feat, and then some . . . From beginning to end, Jesmyn flirts with perfection in this stunning second novel, and the reader is rewarded for it." —Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA)
"A pitch-perfect account of struggle and community in the rural South . . . Though the characters in Salvage the Bones face down Hurricane Katrina, the story isn’t really about the storm. It’s about people facing challenges, and how they band together to overcome adversity." —BookPage
"[Salvage the Bones] is uncompromising and frank, showing both beauty and violence, poverty and resilience, in a powerful and poetic voice." —Sun Herald (Biloxi, MS)
China's turned on herself. If I didn't know, I would think she was trying to eat her paws. I would think that she was crazy. Which she is, in a way. Won't let nobody touch her but Skeet. When she was a big-headed pit bull puppy, she stole all the shoes in the house, all our black tennis shoes Mama bought because they hide dirt and hold up until they're beaten soft. Only Mama's forgotten sandals, thin-heeled and tinted pink with so much red mud seeped into them, looked different. China hid them all under furniture, behind the toilet, stacked them in piles and slept on them. When the dog was old enough to run and trip down the steps on her own, she took the shoes outside, put them in shallow ditches under the house. She'd stand rigid as a pine when we tried to take them away from her. Now China is giving like she once took away, bestowing where she once stole. She is birthing puppies.
What China is doing is nothing like what Mama did when she had my youngest brother, Junior. Mama gave birth in the house she bore all of us in, here in this gap in the woods her father cleared and built on that we now call the Pit. Me, the only girl and the youngest at eight, was of no help, although Daddy said she told him she didn't need any help. Daddy said that Randall and Skeetah and me came fast, that Mama had all of us in her bed, under her own bare burning bulb, so when it was time for Junior, she thought she could do the same. It didn't work that way. Mama squatted, screamed toward the end. Junior came out purple and blue as a hydrangea: Mama's last flower. She touched Junior just like that when Daddy held him over her: lightly with her fingertips, like she was afraid she'd knock the pollen from him, spoil the bloom. She said she didn't want to go to the hospital. Daddy dragged her from the bed to his truck, trailing her blood, and we never saw her again.
What China is doing is fighting, like she was born to do. Fight our shoes, fight other dogs, fight these puppies that are reaching for the outside, blind and wet. China's sweating and the boys are gleaming, and I can see Daddy through the window of the shed, his face shining like the flash of a fish under the water when the sun hit. It's quiet. Heavy. Feels like it should be raining, but it isn't. There are no stars, and the bare bulbs of the Pit burn.
"Get out the doorway. You making her nervous." Skeetah is Daddy's copy: dark, short, and lean. His body knotted with ropy muscles. He is the second child, sixteen, but he is the first for China. She only has eyes for him.
"She ain't studying us," Randall says. He is the oldest, seventeen. Taller than Daddy, but just as dark. He has narrow shoulders and eyes that look like they want to jump out of his head. People at school think he's a nerd, but when he's on the basketball court, he moves like a rabbit, all quick grace and long haunches. When Daddy is hunting, I always cheer for the rabbit.
"She need room to breathe." Skeetah's hands slide over her fur, and he leans in to listen to her belly. "She gotta relax."
"Ain't nothing about her relaxed." Randall is standing at the side of the open doorway, holding the sheet that Skeetah has nailed up for a door. For the past week, Skeetah has been sleeping in the shed, waiting for the birth. Every night, I waited until he cut the light off , until I knew he was asleep, and I walked out of the back door to the shed, stood where I am standing now, to check on him. Every time, I found him asleep, his chest to her back. He curled around China like a fingernail around flesh.
"I want to see." Junior is hugging Randall's legs, leaning in to see but without the courage to stick in more than his nose. China usually ignores the rest of us, and Junior usually ignores her. But he is seven, and he is curious. When the boy from Germaine bought his male pit bull to the Pit to mate with China three months ago, Junior squatted on an oil drum above the makeshift kennel, an old disconnected truck bed dug in the earth with chicken wire stretched over it, and watched. When the dogs got stuck, he circled his face with his arms, but still refused to move when I yelled at him to go in the house. He sucked on his arm and played with the dangling skin of his ear, like he does when he watches television, or before he falls to sleep. I asked him once why he does it, and all he would say is that it sounds like water.
Skeetah ignores Junior because he is focused on China like a man focuses on a woman when he feels that she is his, which China is. Randall doesn't say anything but stretches his hand across the door to block Junior from entering.
"No, Junior." I put out my leg to complete the gate barring Junior from the dog, from the yellow string of mucus pooling to a puddle on the floor under China's rear.
"Let him see," Daddy says. "He old enough to know about that." His is a voice in the darkness, orbiting the shed. He has a hammer in one hand, a clutch of nails in another. China hates him. I relax, but Randall doesn't move and neither does Junior. Daddy spins away from us like a comet into the darkness. There is the sound of hammer hitting metal.
"He makes her tense," Skeetah says.
"Maybe you need to help her push," I say. Sometime I think that is what killed Mama. I can see her, chin to chest, straining to push Junior out, and Junior snagging on her insides, grabbing hold of what he caught on to try to stay inside her, but instead he pulled it out with him when he was born.
"She don't need no help pushing."
And China doesn't. Her sides ripple. She snarls, her mouth a black line. Her eyes are red; the mucus runs pink. Everything about China tenses and there are a million marbles under her skin, and then she seems to be turning herself inside out. At her opening, I see a purplish red bulb. China is blooming.
If one of Daddy's drinking buddies had asked what he's doing to night, he would've told them he's fixing up for the hurricane. It's summer, and when it's summer, there's always a hurricane coming or leaving here. Each pushes its way through the flat Gulf to the twenty-six-mile manmade Mississippi beach, where they knock against the old summer mansions with their slave galleys turned guest houses before running over the bayou, through the pines, to lose wind, drip rain, and die in the north. Most don't even hit us head-on anymore; most turn right to Florida or take a left for Texas, brush past and glance off us like a shirtsleeve. We ain't had one come straight for us in years, time enough to forget how many jugs of water we need to fill, how many cans of sardines and potted meat we should stock, how many tubs of water we need. But on the radio that Daddy keeps playing in his parked truck, I heard them talking about it earlier today. How the forecasters said the tenth tropical depression had just dissipated in the Gulf but another one seems to be forming around Puerto Rico.
So today Daddy woke me up by hitting the wall outside me and Junior's room.
"Wake up! We got work to do."
Junior rolled over in his bed and curled into the wall. I sat up long enough to make Daddy think I was going to get up, and then I lay back down and drifted off . When I woke up two hours later, Daddy's radio was running in his truck. Junior's bed was empty, his blanket on the floor.
"Junior, get the rest of them shine jugs."
"Daddy, ain't none under the house."
Outside the window, Daddy jabbed at the belly of the house with his can of beer. Junior tugged his shorts. Daddy gestured again, and Junior squatted and slithered under the house. The underside of the house didn't scare him like it had always scared me when I was little. Junior disappeared between the cinder blocks holding up the house for afternoons, and would only come out when Skeetah threatened to send China under there after him. I asked Junior one time what he did under there, and all he would say is that he played. I imagined him digging sleeping holes like a dog would, laying on his back in the sandy red dirt and listening to our feet slide and push across floorboards.
Junior had a good arm, and bottles and cans rolled out from under the house like pool balls. They stopped when they hit the rusted-over cow bath Daddy had salvaged from the junkyard where he scraps metal. He'd brought it home for Junior's birthday last year and told him to use it as a swimming pool.
"Shoot," Randall said. He was sitting on a chair under his homemade basketball goal, a rim he'd stolen from the county park and screwed into the trunk of a dead pine tree.
"Ain't nothing hit us in years. They don't come this way no more. When I was little, they was always hitting us." It was Manny. I stood at the edge of the bedroom window, not wanting him to see me. Manny threw a basketball from hand to hand. Seeing him broke the cocoon of my rib cage, and my heart unfurled to fly.
"You act like you ancient—you only two years older than me. Like I don't remember how they used to be," Randall said as he caught the rebound and passed it back to Manny. "If anything hit us this summer, it's going to blow down a few branches. News don't know what they talking about." Manny had black curly hair, black eyes, and white teeth, and his skin was the color of fresh-cut wood at the heart of a pine tree. "Every-time somebody in Bois Sauvage get arrested, they always get the story wrong."
"That's journalists. Weatherman's a scientist," Randall said.
"He ain't shit." From where I was, Manny looked like he was blushing, but I knew his face had broken out, tinged him red, and that the rest of it was the scar on his face.
"Oh, one's coming all right." Daddy wiped his hand along the side of his truck.
Manny rolled his eyes and jerked his thumb at Daddy. He shot. Randall caught the ball and held it. "There ain't even a tropical depression yet," Randall said to Daddy, "and you got Junior bowling with shine bottles."
Randall was right. Daddy usually filled a few jugs of water. Canned goods was the only kind of groceries Daddy knew how to make, so we were never short on Vienna sausages and potted meat. We ate Top Ramen every day: soupy, added hot dogs, drained the juice so it was spicy pasta; dry, it tasted like crackers. The last time we'd had a bad storm hit head-on, Mama was alive; after the storm, she'd barbecued all the meat left in the silent freezer so it wouldn't spoil, and Skeetah ate so many hot sausage links he got sick. Randall and I had fought over the last pork chop, and Mama had pulled us apart while Daddy laughed about it, saying: She can hold her own. Told you she was going to be a little scrappy scrawny thing—built just like you.
"This year's different," Daddy said as he sat on the back of his trunk. For a moment he looked not-drunk. "News is right: every week it's a new storm. Ain't never been this bad." Manny shot again, and Randall chased the ball.
"Makes my bones hurt," Daddy said. "I can feel them coming."
I pulled my hair back in a ponytail. It was my one good thing, my odd thing, like a Doberman come out white: corkscrew curls, black, limp when wet but full as fistfuls of frayed rope when dry. Mama used to let me run around with it down, said it was some throwback trait, and since I got it, I might as well enjoy it. But I looked in the mirror and knew the rest of me wasn't so remarkable: wide nose, dark skin, Mama's slim, short frame with all the curves folded in so that I looked square. I changed my shirt and listened to them talking outside. The walls, thin and uninsulated, peeling from each other at the seams, made me feel like Manny could see me before I even stepped outside. Our high school English teacher, Ms. Dedeaux, gives us reading every summer. After my ninth-grade year, we read As I Lay Dying, and I made an A because I answered the hardest question right: Why does the young boy think his mother is a fish? This summer, after tenth grade, we are reading Edith Hamilton's Mythology. The chapter I finished reading day before yesterday is called "Eight Brief Tales of Lovers," and it leads into the story of Jason and the Argonauts. I wondered if Medea felt this way before she walked out to meet Jason for the first time, like a hard wind come through her and set her to shaking. The insects singing as they ring the red dirt yard, the bouncing ball, Daddy's blues coming from his truck radio, they all called me out the door.
China buries her face between her paws with her tail end in the air before the last push for the first puppy. She looks like she wants to flip over into a headstand, and I want to laugh, but I don't. Blood oozes from her, and Skeetah crouches even closer to help her. China yanks her head up, and her eyes snap open along with her teeth. "Careful!" Randall says. Skeetah has startled her. He lays his hands on her and she rises. I went to my daddy's Methodist church one time with my mama, even though she raised us Catholic, and this is what China moves like; like she has caught the ghost, like the holiest voice moves through her instead of Skeetah's. I wonder if her body feels like it is in the grip of one giant hand that wrings her empty.
"I see it!" Junior squeals.
The first puppy is big. It opens her and slides out in a stream of pink slime. Skeetah catches it, places it to the side on a pile of thin, ripped towels he has prepared. He wipes it.
"Orange, like his daddy," Skeetah says. "This one's going to be a killer."
The puppy is almost orange. He is really the color of the red earth after someone has dug in it to plant a field or pull up stones or put in a body. It is Mississippi red. The daddy was that color: he was short and looked like a big red muscle. He had chunks of skin and flesh crusted over to scabby sores from fighting. When he and China had sex, there was blood on their jaws, on her coat, and instead of loving, it looked like they were fighting. China's skin is rippling like wind over water. The second puppy slides halfway out feet-first and hangs there.
"Skeet," Junior squeaks. He has one eye and his nose pressed against Randall's leg, which he is hugging. He seems very dark and very small, and in the night gloom, I cannot see the color of his clothes.
Skeetah grabs the puppy's rear, and his hand covers the entire torso. He pulls. China growls, and the puppy slides clear. He is pink. When Skeetah lays him on the mat and wipes him off , he is white with tiny black spots like watermelon seeds spit across his fur. His tongue protrudes through the tiny slit that is his mouth, and he looks like a flat cartoon dog. He is dead. Skeetah lets go of the towel and the puppy rolls, stiff as a bowling pin, across the padding to rest lightly against the red puppy, which is moving its legs in small fits, like blinks.
"Shit, China." Skeetah breathes. Another puppy is coming. This one slowly slides out headfirst; a lonely, hesitant diver. Big Henry, one of Randall's friends, dives into the water at the river like that every time we go swimming: heavy and carefully, as if he is afraid his big body, with its whorls of muscle and fat, will hurt the water. And every time Big Henry does so, the other boys laugh at him. Manny is always the loudest of them all: his teeth white knives, his face golden red. The puppy lands in the cup of Skeetah's palms. She is a patchwork of white and brown. She is moving, her head bobbing in imitation of her mother's. Skeetah cleans the puppy. He kneels behind China, who growls. Yelps. Splits.
Even though Daddy's truck was parked right beyond the front door and Junior hit me in my calf with a shine bottle, I looked at Manny first. He was holding the ball like an egg, with his fingertips, the way Randall says a good ball handler does. Manny could dribble on rocks. I had seen him in the rocky sand at the corner of the basketball court down at the park, him and Randall, dribbling and defending, dribbling and defending. The rocks made the ball ricochet between their legs like a rubber paddleball, unpredictable and wild, but they were so good they caught to dribble again nearly every time. They'd fall before they'd let the ball escape, dive to be cut by shells and small gray stones. Manny was holding the ball as tenderly as he would a pit puppy with pedigree papers. I wanted him to touch me that way.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from SALVAGE THE BONES by JESMYN WARD Copyright © 2011 by Jesmyn Ward. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury USA. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Anonymous
Posted November 26, 2011
I wrote a longer review for this book on my nook before accidently clicking away from the screen and losing it, so I'm not going to re-write the long review this book truly deserves. Instead, to keep it short and sweet, I'll just say this book is beautiful, the characters exceptional, the plot tense but slow enough to savor, and the climax equal parts distressing and hopeful. I finished this book several days ago (read it in one sitting) and it has still stuck with me so do yourself a favor and read this book.
9 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.SecretK
Posted September 24, 2011
I loved this book. Not to be cliche, but this author has a way with words and has a very poetic style. She provides great imagery and descriptions where other authors would have taken an easier route to say "the sky was blue". This is what separates her book from a piece of fiction and makes hers a piece of fiction literature. How she tells the story is great, but the story she tells is even greater. I fell in love with and felt empathetic for the characters in the story. Although we only spent 12 days with them, what we learned about them and their struggles, their victories, and how they constantly overcome defeat, covered more than 12 days. I liked how the author gave each character equal time in the light. Even China and her puppies were well developed characters and I felt they were significant to the plot. What I thought about most when reading this story was that these chracters were very young, all still teens, yet they were acting like adults and taking on adult roles because they had to. Yes, they were making some bad choices along the way but who was there to guide them to make better ones? Although they were good at protecting Jr they didn't understand him and thought he was being weird or boisterous when in fact he was being a normal young kid. Sadly, many kids today are in similar situations. Kids raising kids because while the parents are physically there they are still absent. Finally, I know all too well the aftermath of Katrina. The descriptions were very realistic. The author was spot on with this one. I look forward to future work from Ms. Ward.
6 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.jm248
Posted January 4, 2013
The writing is well done - no equivocations there. Jesmyn Ward is masterful in her storytelling.
BUT, if you, like me, cannot stomach stories in which bad things happen to dogs, do not read this book. Aside from the dog fighting, if I never hear another story about the dogs that people failed to adequately care for during Katrina, I'd be glad for it. Maybe it's the state of the world, but I prefer my fiction without sad and mistreated dogs.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.ZoeyTheCat
Posted June 19, 2012
Even with the load of Southern Cultural Steretypes, this book is uninteresting.
Poor southern family. Black alcoholic father. Non-married pregnant daughter. Can't we Southerners get a break and have a book deal with a balanced reality? After Hurricane Katrina I would venture to say that everyone in the U.S. with a television knows Hurricanes are deadly. People along the Gulf coast know this as their reality. However, this family is clueless, thanks to that alcoholic father. Well, he had to be drunk to leave the family in peril If you want to read a book that will make you want to go to a therapist afterward, this one is for you. You get dragged down with the southern sluggishness of lives town apart.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.PoppyWade
Posted June 2, 2012
A lullaby. It's horrifying in a dreamlike way that haunts and chills. I'm almost angry at Jesmyn for setting the bar so high, now that every other book feels flat and lame. Excellent, excellent, excellent.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.There is a moment in the beginning of this book when I want to put the book down (the birthing of puppies). There is a point in the middle when I breathe raggedly, as though from a gut punch (Ward’s description of the dog fight). And there are long stretches at the end of this book when I cannot take my horrified eyes from the page, when I feel my insides crumbling and my heart breaking and my memories reeling and I know I have read something extraordinary. Jesmyn Ward just gives us words, but words like none other has written. She has put them together in a way that creates a world apart but with all the love, pain, pathos, hope, fear, and loyalty that we will recognize from the finest examples of our literature. When she describes the color and texture of a man’s arm, or the watery pressure of a new pregnancy, or the terror of discovering rising water through the floorboards of one’s living room, Jesmyn Ward has caught that thing as though it were alive. When I try to say in a few words the story of this novel, everything I write is inadequate. A poor family lives outside a town but near the coast in Mississippi. Our narrator is fourteen with hair that frames her head “like a pillow.” She has three brothers, a father that drinks too much, and several paramours but one in particular. Katrina hits and we experience the storm. This is classic literature, and, difficult as it may seem at first, wholly appropriate for teens. It is a little like saying A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah is a teen title. That book, about a teen forced into soldiering in Sierra Leone, is similarly hard-hitting. It might be better for our teens to know than not to know. They are exposed to so much anyway--a little reality might improve their outlook. I wouldn't "require" this novel, but I would add it to reading lists. Teens can do much worse than experience the exquisite sense of language in this wholly original work.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 8, 2012
The story did not appeal to me at all. It was on the list for our book club to read and after several of us read it (early) it was then taken off the list and another book substituted in. Just was not our "cup of tea".
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.'Salvage the Bones' is Somber
Following Hurricane Katrina, a slew of books about it came out in quick succession over the course of a year or two. It was a “popular” topic and I avoided every single one. I try not to read books that are written by authors who are attempting to capitalize on a catastrophic event while the event is still unfolding. There’s a big difference between historical fiction and riding that wave. So, even though it’s 8 years later, I was hesitant to read this book.
I’m not sure where I first saw it, but it had a good review and one of the things that jumped out at me what that the reviewer went out of their way to say that while this was a book that took place during Hurricane Katrina, the hurricane is a backdrop and in no way dictates the story. Basically, it could have been any number of hurricanes or rainstorms down in the bayou, and that the author was not attempting to profit from a sensational story about tragedy.
Let me just say that I flew through this book and the writer of that review (thanks to whoever you are) was entirely correct. Hurricane Katrina set the tone for the book, but did not propel the story on its own. Instead, the book takes place over 12 days, with each chapter representing a day and beginning the day Hurricane Katrina formed while ending after she makes landfall.The story itself is about the Batiste family, who live in fictional Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. Poor and living in the Pit, Esche and her three brothers struggle with day to day life 9 years after the death of their mother. While Esche is coming to terms with her own personal problems, her brother Skeetah is trying to take care of the new puppies his prized fighter pit bull, China, gave birth to. Meanwhile, Randall is trying to win a scholarship to basketball camp and Junior, the baby of the family, is just trying to keep up and not be left behind. I love that the author gives the reader a glimpse into the daily lives of a poverty-stricken family without evoking pity. Instead, their financial situation is simply a way of life and not something that they focus on or complain about.
I must point out that dogfighting is a big part of this book and that Chapter 8 was some of the most intense and difficult reading I have ever read (they also eat a shark, which I’m sure bothers me more than most people because I’m a huge shark conservationist). Despite these difficulties, it is a great book. It’s not a sunshine and rainbows book, but I think it has widespread appeal. The writing style, which is similar to Precious, Room, and The Help, is not one I typically enjoy. In fact, I haven’t read any of the books I just mentioned because I can’t get through the first chapter. BUT, I was able to get through this one with flying colors and I think it’s a great read for anyone who is interested in the the region.
Brittany16JL
Posted December 10, 2012
What is Salvage the Bones About?
Salvage the Bones is one of the better books to read in an English class. Jesmyn Ward is one of the best authors to read. She can really tell a story and take stuff around her and write one of the best books. This book is about poor people and what happens when there is a hurricane fixing to hit. Many of the characters in this book can relate to someone you know or have heard of. The main characters names are: Esch, Skeetah, and Junior. All the characters are so different from each other even though they are siblings. Jesmyn Ward effectively used the contrast in the pace of the book as a technique to really show the calm before the storm. Just as life for the real victims of Hurricane Katrina continued as usual in the days leading up to the hurricane, with all the mundaneness of daily life, so did the lives of Esch and her family, that is, until the hurricane hit and wiped everything out.
Esch and her three brothers are raised by their alcoholic father in their run down house. Her father does not have a job and is abusive towards her bothers sometimes. There is little money for the necessities they need like food. So they live off the land as much as they can and they hope they can make money off the litter of pure bred pit bull terriers one of her older brothers is raising. They do bad things sometimes like steel but they don’t know better. In this story to Esch is fourteen and ends up pregnant.
Esch is the main character in this book. She is the one that tells the story and everything that goes on. Her mother died when she was young. Esch is in love with a guy named Manny. He only uses her for sex because he knows she is so easy and it is not fair for her. She ends up pregnant and she does not want to tell anybody. She is Manny’s girl on the side, while the girl he talks to doesn’t want to do anything with him. Esch is a really good girl beside that. But you really can’t blame her most teenagers her age have sex. And some cases you do have some of them getting pregnant. It is sad that her mother is not there to help her. That is probably the reason she is the way she is. She has a lot of fun though and she grew up pretty well without a mother.
Motherhood is certainly a recurring theme in Salvage the Bones. Everyone is Esch's family remembers their mother with love. Esch's father is clearly a man devastated by the loss of his wife and the mother of his children. Esch, on the cusp of becoming a mother herself, reflects on the good that her mother did and the big shoes that she and her brothers had to fill when her mother passed away. Ward takes time to show Skeetah's dog China's attempts to be a mother to her new pups, and Skeetah's attempt to take on this roll when China and the pups need him to.
All of the characters are salvaging something. Skeetah, one of Esch's brothers, salvages anything he can for the sake of his dogs; wormer, food, planks of wood. In doing so Skeetah is really attempting to salvage his sense of purpose. They all salvage items from their property in order to prepare for the hurricane, just as everyone who was affected by the hurricane must salvage what they can of their lives. For Junior, one of Esch's brothers, it is memories of his mother that he attempts to salvage throughout the novel.
Ward creates a real sense of wilderness and need around Esch and her family. She created this by slowly revealing little details that really demonstrated the level of poverty they lived in. Ward reveals how the children had to raise their youngest brother when their mother dies in childbirth. When the hurricane hits it speeds up the speed of the story. It has you reading faster cause you get so into it. You will never want to put it down. This is one of the best books Jesmyn Ward has written and it is worth reading. It is interesting and you never know what is coming.
Ashtin00
Posted December 10, 2012
As Hurricane Katrina began to brew in the Gulf of Mexico, Esch and her family prepared to face many hard ships for the next twelve days. “Salvage the Bones,” written by Jesmyn Ward, is told through the eyes of the fourteen year old daughter named Esch. In the midst of preparing for the hurricane coming, Skeetah’s pit-bull gives birth to a litter of puppies, Esch finds out she is pregnant, and their family slowly falls apart.
This book opened with the scene of Skeetah’s pit-bull, China, giving birth to a litter of puppies. This book revolved around a cycle of birth and death and pain and sorrow. Skeetah strived to care for China like he wanted his father to care for his children. Although Esch’s father stayed drunk and he was usually absent in their life, they learned how to fend for themselves. Esch and her three brothers, Randall, Skeetah, and Junior, came together and protected each other.
Their mother died giving birth to Junior, therefore; they have longed for that mother figure since she has been gone. Esch tries to somewhat take the role of her mother by comforting her brothers, cooking, and taking care of things around their house. Esch’s brothers took care of the manly chores around their home and stock up on the little food they could find to help them during the hurricane. The food and products were so limited that Skeetah would sneak scraps to feed China and her pups. This story truly showed how strong and caring the children were during such a tragic time and at such a young age.
They did not have much to ease their hardships while living in poverty. Esch escaped from reality through sex. This showed how lost she was without having a mother there to teach her right from wrong. Randall found a passion in basketball. He had high hopes that he would be taken away from the pit by getting scouted by a college league. Skeetah spent his time taking care of China or putting her in dog fights. Junior was very young and tended to cling to Randall. They did not have parents to guide their paths or set any type of standards for them; they only had each other.
This book illustrated the reality and pitiless hardships that poverty faces daily. All the hardships in Esch’s life have taught her life-long lessons she can use toward anything. Not only did Esch and her brothers have to cope on their own, their childhood was taken away. With the death of their mother and the absence of their father, it seemed as if love and compassion toward Esch and her brothers was very limited throughout this book. Every time a good thing came along, death followed closely behind it. Even though this family faced a brutal time in their lives, Esch and her family found light through the darkness.
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Posted December 10, 2012
Keana Wash
Review of Salvage the Bones
Salvage the Bones written by Jesmyn Ward, is an interesting book to read. It captures your attention the moment it is read. The family of the Bastile not only struggled from pregnancy and poverty, they also tried to manage Hurricane Katrina as well. Even though they had their problems, nothing seem like it could pull them apart.
The Bastile family are not as wealthy as most people in their town. They live in a house called a pit in a very small neighborhood. They did not have many jobs around and if they did get a job, it did not pay over minimum wage. They did not get to eat a whole lot of fancy food. Basically, they ate the same thing almost every day, which was ramen noodles and eggs. The kids did not have a mother or a mother figure around to help except for Esh. She was the only girl in the household. On top of all that, Esh was pregnant with a baby. So that was one more problem added to their list that they did not need. They could barely feed their family, so what makes them think they can feed one more mouth? Despite all of that, they had a pitbull name China that was a fighting dog that was once a champion, but then had gotten pregnant and they are trying to find a medicine to give her so she will not get worms.
Esh is pregnant by this dude that she is madly in love with but unfortunately, he cannot help support the baby when it is born. Pregnancy is the thing in their family because Esh and the dog are, but at the moment and time, they cannot afford that to happen. Before Esh knew she was pregnant, she was noticing that she was getting sick and missing her cycle. Sadly to say, she did not have the money to buy a pregnancy test so she had to steal in order to find out. When she had took the test that morning that is when she had foung out she was becoming a mother.
Love is a hard to thing to find and a hard thing to lose. If you are in love, it is hard for you to see many things that your partner is doing. Just like Esh, she is in love with this boy name Manny. He is the one that has gotten her pregnant. Sadly, he does not care for her as she does for him. He does not treat her like she needs to be treated, but she still manages to be around him and love him. Many does not see how much Esh really loves him. He just do not want to see it.
The Bastile family have had many obstacles thrown at their feet but they still are a family. They love each other more than words can describe. Not only were they in Hurricane Katrina, they also had problems like poverty, pregnancy, and life itself.
Anonymous
Posted December 10, 2012
Tequila Huffman
Salvage the Bones
Salvage the Bones was a great novel by Jesmyn Ward that I really could relate too. Throughout the novel I felt like I was right there in the Pit with the family. The novel is about a family and their living conditions in the pit. The family is African- Americans and they aren’t very wealthy. The family consisted of a father, three sons, and a daughter. The mother of the family died after giving birth to her last baby boy who was named Junior. When the story starts, it talks about the next to the oldest brother whose name is Skeetah and Skeetah’s dog that was giving birth to puppies for the first time. While the author of the story which was the sister who named was Esch, switches back and forth to her mother giving birth and now to the dog giving birth she said that the dog wasn’t doing what her mother was doing as she gave birth to her youngest son Junior. More on in the story, it talks about how the family was preparing for a hurricane named Katrina. It talked about them gathering enough food, supplies, and water for the family. The daddy of the family is a drunk, and that’s mostly all he does in the story. The oldest brother and the sister was mainly the one who took care of the family. Farther on in the story it talks about Esch, the only girl and her relationships. Esch didn’t really have anybody so the boys really took advantage of her. She was very crazy about this boy named Manny. He was a friend of the family. He was always around with her brothers, and Esch was like a tomboy; she was always right along with them. It talks about another character named Big Henry, who was also a friend of her family. Big Henry was a lot of help to their family. When their dad wasn’t around to take them places Big Henry, was there. Esch later finds out that she is pregnant. She is fifteen and in the tenth grade, and she says that Manny is the father. Many times in the story she relates back to her mother and how she would have handled certain situations. She refers back to her mythology book a lot too about her relationships and how Medea handled Jason. Manny never liked Esch he only used her to get what he wanted, and she really liked him so she gave it to him every chance she got. Skeetah was the brother who seems not to care much about his family. His mainly concern was his dog and her puppies. He plans to fight his dog China so he can win some money. Skeetah and Esch were very close. Esch went everywhere and did everything with Skeetah. Junior is the youngest son and the youngest of the four and he is very spoiled. He helps his father out. Closer to the end of story Skeetah fights his dog China and she wins over a dog named Kilo. In the End, the hurricane had finally come and it tore up a great deal of stuff. It also took China and her puppies. They never found China or the puppies. The family went through a lot in this story.
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Posted December 9, 2012
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Anonymous
Posted December 9, 2012
This novel is a deeply disturbing book about a poor black family in lower Mississippi, facing the tribulations of life and preparing for a dangerous threat that could end all their lives. The main character’s lives run parallel to each other. Esch is a fourteen year old girl that is forced to live in poverty while raising her younger brother due to her neglecting, drunk father. She is also very promisqueous and is eventually impregnated by a guy that is not only older than her, but also has no romantic feelings for her. She believes he will develop them but this time never comes. The other main character is China, a white pit bull that Esch's brother, Skeetah, raises like his own child even though he is training her to be a ferocious fighting dog. However, China has puppies early in the book and throughout the novel she struggles to get well. Skeetah goes through many hardships to help his dog. This shows that he really cares for the animal. During all of this, the threat of hurricane Katrina is a constant threat that is hinted at throughout the story.
Even though the book shows deep feeling and family values, the constant over exagerration of detail and harsh topics is to much for my taste. From dog fighting, a terrible act in of itself, to a fourteen year old having sex constantly, this book shows a hundred bad examples for children to idolize. Throughout the book, the characters show no remorse for their actions and even pick fun at the topics. The fact that the severe issues in this novel are not only stated straight out but are the main focus of the book and are expressed in vivid detail is a sore miscalculation by the author. The ever present danger of Katrina is far understated and the finale of the storm is so insignificant that being affected by it is rather difficult. If the author can express in such clear detail dog fights and sex, then why can she not express the horror of a major storm that wiped out the lower part of a country.
In comparison to many other novels, this one falls short in it's eagerness to be different and it's overexaggeration of details that truly do not matter. The true emphasis is misplaced and is under appreciated by the author and is not a reccomended book for those that want a morally sound book.
Anonymous
Posted December 9, 2012
Salvage the Bones
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward is a good book in its own right. It’s very descriptive, almost too descriptive for its own good. Jesmyn does let you know exactly what it feels like to live in a world where women are not given the respect that they are due. Wards book is so descriptive, that at times it draws the reader in so deep that the reader finds their selves anxious to find out what will happen next, but at other times, Ward is so descriptive, that she almost makes you want to stop reading.
Jesmyn Ward’s book is a good story in itself. It’s an inspiring story that contains many metaphors and similes that enhance the storytelling a lot. It is very interesting story, about Esch, who is a young high school age girl who lives in a ghetto, called “the Pit”. In the pit, Esch is surrounded by men; her dad, her three brothers, and all of their friends, are always at the pit, and have always been in Esch’s life. Whenever Esch grows older, and the boys start recognizing her, she starts having sex with them. She eventually learns that she is pregnant, and the book is about her overcoming those difficulties.
That’s where the vividness and descriptiveness of Ward’s story hurts this book. At times when the reader is reading this book, they will want to stop and put it down because of it. Ward describes Esch’s sexual activities in this book so vividly, that it borderlines pornography. Most people, including me, would find it disgusting and appalling. Esch engages in sexual activities numerous times throughout the book, and every time, the reader will want to throw the book down in disgust.
Despite how graphic and vivid the book is during Esch’s sexual encounters, the story is still a good story, and the book is an ovrerall good book. Esch is a very inspiring and determined main character. Although she throws herself around sexually, she is the maternity figure that every mother should be, not even to the baby growing inside of her, but to her family as well. Overall, this makes the book a good one. All of the characters are portrayed very vividly and believable, and definitely helps the book.
In the end, Salvage the Bones is overall a good book. Despite many of it’s disgusting vividness and sexuality, if the reader is mature enough to understand what is going on in Esch’s love life, then they will more than likely enjoy this book. Its intricate storytelling is very vital to what makes this book a good book. Overall, while this book may be very vivid and disturbing at some points, it’s at it’s the high points where the story is very intricate with its drama, character growth, and relationships that really make this book shine. In the end, this book is definitely recommended, as long as the reader is mature enough, and thinks that they can handle its vivid sexuality.
Cait_Morgan
Posted December 6, 2012
Literary Analysis: Salvage the Bones
Jesmyn Ward, a professor at the University of South Alabama and a budding new writer, uses vivid language in her book titled Salvage the Bones. In this novel, she does a fantastic job giving a description of a family in a sparsely populated town near the Gulf of Mexico in Mississippi. The family of predominately males deals with countless issues in a stretch of twelve days revolving around themselves and an upcoming storm spinning in the Gulf.
To understand how the main character, Esch, sees her male controlled environment, one could read a Greek mythology story called The Quest for the Golden Fleece as a reference. As the reader compares Esch’s environment to the woman in the mythology story, it becomes clear how Esch’s life relates to a woman’s life ancient years ago. Another reason to read the Quest for the Golden Fleece before Ward’s novel is that Esch reflects on the story throughout these twelve days the fresh novel takes place.
In Ward’s novel, she depicts the family’s troubles. The family is extremely poor with little education. This is a single parent household after the death of the mother in child labor. The father is barely able to contribute to his family’s welfare being that he is a drunk. This family consists of an alcoholic father and his three sons and one daughter. This colorful story is seen through the eyes of the daughter, fourteen-year-old Esch. Esch is a character who is without a female role model. This young girl deals with her own personal problems along with the strains of her harsh rural life. An approaching hurricane gives the struggling family yet another serious problem to face. As the twelve long days close, it leads to an intense end to the novel. The kindhearted story that Ward presents to the reader describes how the children, in a place with little loves, sacrifice what they are able to for the loyalty of their family.
The language is Ward’s first novel is a poetic masterpiece. She wrote this book in a tender yet gritty and honest way. The characters’ lives take a literal approach. For the reader, Ward paints a picture of a way of life for this family in a poor community in a rural area near the coast of Mississippi. Jesmyn Ward uses a contemporary style of writing in her novel Salvage the Bones. The realism of the characters’ lives gives the reader an up lifting feeling through the understanding of a never failing loyalty the family expresses. The language that the bright passionate writer uses helps the reader to grasp the intense emotions in this unforgiving setting. As she gives in-depth accounts of the raw spirits of the people in her book, one can get a sense of where her writings originate. Her clear concise writing is unique. Salvage the Bones is a triumphant and distinctive story. Jesmyn Ward is an astonishing different writer with a refreshing take on modern literature.
Anonymous
Posted December 1, 2012
Lakesha Clark
Jesmyn Ward’s novel, Salvage the Bones, is a dramatic story about the Batiste Family. The Batiste family consists of Claude, Esch, Randall, Skeetah, and Junior, and Esch is the only female in their household. This family goes through several trials, while they are also preparing for Hurricane Katrina. Jesmyn writes this novel to make readers feel that the novel is more a tragedy than a romantic period novel. Jesmyn writes this novel with rich dramatic irony, allusions from The Quest of the Golden Fleece, and metaphors and similes comparing each character to another character or non-living thing. “Like a hard wind come through her and set her to shaking. The insects singing as they ring the red dirt yard, the bouncing ball, Daddy’s blue coming from his truck radio, they all called me out the door” (7).
Salvage the Bones is a very realistic novel. The characters go through several situations and hardships, while at the same time they are preparing for the terrible Hurricane Katrina that is headed towards them. Jesmyn compares the character Esch to another character in the myth The Quest of the Golden Fleece, which is Medea. “I can see her. Medea sneaks Jason things to help him: ointments to make him invincible, secrets in rocks. She has magic, could bend he natural to the unnatural. But even with all her power, Jason bends her like a young pine in a hard wind; he makes her double in two. I know her” (38). Esch thinks she is Medea when it comes to her love for Manny. “I loved you. This is Medea wielding the knife. This is Medea cutting. I rake my fingernails across his face, leave pink scratches that turn red, fill with blood” (204). When Manny betrays Esch, she thought back to Medea and Jason’s fight. Esch tries to hurt Manny, just like Medea was hurting everyone that got in her way. Esch is much similar to Medea in The Quest of the Golden Fleece because both of them go through trials and tribulations with their loved ones.
Jesmyn also represents the role of motherhood in the novel. Esch, who has not developed maturely, is already going through several motherly challenges by raising her brothers and getting ready to take care of her own unborn baby. She nurtures her brothers when they need her. Esch is basically shown as a mother-figure throughout the entire novel. Jesmyn reveals the theme of loneliness in the novel within Esch. “I clung like a monkey to Mama, my legs and arms wrapped around her softness, and I cried, love running through me like a hard, blinding summer rain. And then, Mama died, and there was no one left for me to hold on to” (59). Jesmyn also reveals the sense that Esch is a very strong individual by showing that she goes through too many trials and having to accept the fact that she does not have a mother, but remains a strong young lady. Jesmyn Ward really did a great job writing this novel. Salvage the Bones is a very interesting and inspirational book to read. By reading this novel, readers will want to go collect numerous amounts of Jesmyn’s novels. Salvage the Bones is an intense and influential novel that all readers should read at least once.
Anonymous
Posted November 26, 2012
Salvage the Bones
This book is about a family who have a hard life, live poorly and are about to experience a hurricane. There is a father, and four children: Randall, Skeetah, Esch, and Junior. The children help their father get prepared for the storm. Their father is a bad alcoholic and they are without a mother because their mother has died giving birth to Junior. Esch suffers the most through this, being the only girl and has no one to lean on and learn from. The only person she has is Medea, a character from a book she had to read over the summer called Mythology, who helps her through tough times. Esch finds out later in the story she is pregnant by one of her brothers friends, Manny. Only fourteen she struggles to hid her secret and not treat her body correctly. Also all the children are affected by their father being an alcoholic. They have to help each other and learn quickly. Life is harder for them without a proper parent doing their job.
Skeetah has a dog named China, who he loves and tries his best to do whatever he can for her. She has just had puppies in the beginning but most of them die. He provides much attention and care for them. During the storm, Skeetah has them in the house but the storm takes them away. After the hurricane, the family sees they have lost a lot, not having much in the first place. When the storm is over, they must recover a lot of what they lost. This signals the end of the book.
Each child has to do chores to prepare for the storm that their father has given them. They have to clean the house, fill water jugs, get gas for their dad’s truck and get enough food for the storm. Their father was very demanding and hard to get along with in the story. He never spends time with the children like he should and tends to himself and drinks all the time.
There was a lot in this book and it seemed longer than twelve days, which were how many chapters equaling that many days. It explained a lot and got into much detail about everything. I really got a true picture of how hard life is on some people who aren’t as fortunate as others. These kids worked hard and were always there for each other and that showed how great family can be. They never leave you even through the hard times or no matter what you have done. Also, I was always wondering what would happen next after I would read another chapter. Each chapter got more and more interesting and intriguing. It was easy to understand but some things said may be hard to hear but it is true facts. I enjoyed this book, one reason being it was about a family in the country who work hard and love each other. Jesamyn Ward, the author of this book, did a great job and would be a great read for others.
Samantha_Carollo
Posted November 26, 2012
Book Review: Salvage the Bones
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward is a fiction story about a family that struggles to get ready for a hurricane that is rapidly approaching. There is a hurricane headed straight for the little town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. Esch’s father can feel that the hurricane is headed for them. With the dad being a heavy drinker, he usually does not show much concern about anything else. The family is going through quit a few problems in the course of the 12 days. Esch, the daughter is pregnant and fears what her family will say; so she tries to keep it a secret from everyone for as long as possible. She got pregnant by Manny, who does not give her the time of day. He has a girlfriend but Esch is still madly in love with him or so she thinks. Another problem that the family is going through is with Skeetah and his dog China. China, at the beginning of the story, is having a litter of puppies. By seeing this happen, it reminds the kids of when their mother was in labor with Junior and she died. Skeetah keeps on training China for a fight. Later on in the week, Skeetah goes and steals some worming medicine and gives it to China, but it makes her sick. This begins to worry Skeetah because he thinks that China is going to die, she does not die though. While Esch still tries to hide her pregnancy, Skeetah begins to figure out what is really going on with Esch. She is beginning to get a little bigger, when she is usually small and lanky. When the hurricane finally reaches Bois Sauvage, the family gets into the attic where they will be away from the storm. While the storm is going on the family finds out that Esch is pregnant. The dad does not know what to think or say to her. She ends up falling out of a hole in the wall and lands flat on her back. When she falls she takes the puppies down with her on accident. When Esch looks at the puppies, their eyes are on her and she feels like they are judging her.
Jesmyn Ward shows the characters in a well-developed way. I believe that this book has a theme of motherhood. With the story telling about the mother when she was in child birth and how she died. Also, with Esch having to become a mother at 14 and having to grow up so quick can result with not having a mother. Esch has been surrounded by guys all her life and has not had a mother figure in her life to guide her through life. I believe that the story is well written. It keeps the audience interested in what is happening with this family. This story is well-organized because it goes along with each day as a chapter. It also tells about what the family has to go through to get ready for the hurricane that eventually hit them. I believe this family learned that you will have to work together to accomplish the things in life. There are many lessons that can be learned from this story. When I first began reading the book, I was not real interested; but as I kept reading I began to be able to picture what was going on and what the family was going through. I believe that it is very important for a reader to be able to imagine what is going on in the story that they are reading.
Anonymous
Posted November 25, 2012
In the Wake of Katrina
Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones is a book full of deviance and troubles. The diction and poetry add to the incredible situations this southern Mississippi family overcomes. The author plays with the reader’s emotions by not giving the reader what he or she necessarily expects to happen. The family takes hit after hit until the story reaches a climax, hurricane Katrina has arrived. The emotions and action described during the hurricane were thrilling and made it extremely hard to put down and quit reading. Ward, an African American native of Mississippi, definitely understands the language and the way people communicate and interact down south. She effectively uses this knowledge throughout the novel and it adds to the heart and setting of the novel.
The novel never ceases to add and use blunt realism to the language and relationships between characters. The realism just adds interest to the novel and makes it much more enjoyable to read. The blunt language and situations, mainly occur in Esch’s life, particularly in her sexual life and the experiences she went through while growing up. Some scenes get extremely graphic. It is definitely not a book for children. The many different disasters the family goes through is incredible and brutal. From their mother dying while giving birth to the youngest son, from Esch getting pregnant, to the father not being concerned at all about the devastation and destruction to their home during the hurricane. There are many others. The trials are relentless and never let up during the timeline this story uses.
Also, some character is always under sort of stress at some point in the story. But the story goes on to show morals, even though troubles come, there is still something to smile and be happy about. Things will get better. There are some tough roads to get there sometimes but things do get better. Even though they lost their home in the midst of the hurricane, they did not lose each other. Everyone was safe and for the most part uninjured. The overall moral of the story could very well be just that, that even though terrible things may happen, there is still something to smile or be happy about. The family was strong, they had been through so much. They were experienced in making it through hard times. This could possibly be the reason that they endured through the hurricane. Their strong will and determination helped them stay alive. Any other family that had not faced the things this family had may not have been strong enough to make it through and might have perished in the midst of the storm.
All in all, the novel can be interpreted and described in many ways. But probably the most prevalent is that family and friends are the stronghold to survival in the walk of life. The end of the book focuses heavily on that when we see the family survive the hurricane together, and then we see the friends take them under their wing while they can rebuild. This novel was all about the bonds between each other and the strength the bonds brought. -CDeNoon
Overview
A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior...