If you follow this blog or talk to me about how I select books for our high school library, you'll know that I'm always on the lookout for books written for an adult reader but would appeal to teens as well. Mudbound by Hillary Jordan was one of those titles.
It is 1946 Mississippi - a time rife with prejudice that is angry and hateful. Laura reluctantly follows her husband into the rural countryside where he has bought a farm fulfilling a long-kept quiet dream. Their home has no electricity, no running water, no indoor plumbing, and LOTS of mud! There are Black sharecroppers who are proud of their work and land to till. Blacks and Whites each know their "place" and get by. The Jackson's are one sharecropper family. Their son, Ronsell, has returned home a war hero yet in spite of all that he gave to defend freedom, he must live in the Jim Crow south where he does not have full freedom.
Hillary Jordan writes with an authenticity that gives us, her readers, an experience approaching having lived it. You will fear for Ronsell and his safety. You may need to put the book down for awhile, as I did, because the pain is so palpable. You will question how Laura, a strong, educated city-girl, can give up that life to move to this 'backward' area. You will know mud!
One more thing you may like to know, this is author Jordan's first novel - AND she won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction! Author Barbara Kingsolver created the award and it is given for "fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships." Mudbound indeed delivers the human experience.
Reviewed by Mrs. Boehm
No comments:
Post a Comment