Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan
This older novel (published in 2008) was chosen for my library book club for May. And what a novel it is.
Taking place mostly in the period directly following World War II, Laura McAllan is a woman in her thirties married to Henry, with two children. They met and married in Memphis, Tennessee, and she was just fine living there. She liked her city life. But when Henry’s brother in law dies unexpectedly, he decides to move the family to his homeland in the Mississippi Delta, to be closer to his sister. He buys a rundown farm that has been worked by sharecroppers, ready to make a living from the land. Laura tries hard to hide her anger and disappointment at this turn of events, and at the fact that her sullen, crude, ungrateful father-in-law is moving in. In frustration, she names the farm ‘Mudbound,’ and it sticks.
Soon, two men return to the farm from the war; one white and one black. Henry’s younger brother Jamie was a pilot, and carries the emotional battle scars. He tries to drown his nightmares in a bottle. Ronsel Jackson, son of one of the sharecropping families, was a Sergeant in a tank battalion. For the first time in Europe, Ronsel experienced what it was like to not walk in a world of racism. Now that he’s back in the Jim Crow south, it is difficult to go back to the prejudice. The quiet story of family soon takes a dramatic and tragic turn as a result of the friendship of these two men.
Jordan writes from the perspective of each of the characters in the novel. A story of family bonds, and the lengths we will go to protect those we love. A story of prejudice and racism in the deep south, and the way it can rip a family apart. She builds each character with their strengths and their flaws, forcing the reader to choose sides. Each character unweaves a small part of the story, revealing more and more until the tragic end.
It is a debut novel that you won’t soon forget.
5 stars.
Wine and History Visited 