Jesmyn Ward's acclaimed memoir shines a light on the community she comes from in the small town of DeLisle, Mississippi, a place of quiet beauty and fierce attachment. Here, in the space of four years, she lost five young black men dear to her, including her beloved brother - to accidents, murder, and suicide.
Their deaths were seemingly unconnected, yet their lives had been connected by identity and place. As Jesmyn dealt with these losses, she came to a staggering truth: the fates of these young men were predetermined by who they were and where they were from, because racism and economic struggle breed a certain kind of bad luck.
The agonising reality brought Jesmyn to write, at last, their true stories and her own.
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Whenever my mother drove us from coastal Mississippi to New Orleans to visit my father for the weekend, she would say, 'Lock the doors'.- PROLOGUE
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(@BloomsburyBooks, 17 September 2013, e-book, 272 pages, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveInc, #POPSUGARReadingChallenge, a celebrity memoir)
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I enjoyed this memoir a lot, if enjoyment is an appropriate word to use for a book that's so heart-breaking. As a memoir, this is a personal account of the author's own experiences of loss, death and grief. However, it touches on universal themes such as identity, community, family, violence and racism as the book describes the author's loss and grief is backdropped by growing up in a small town and experiencing poverty at times and racism. This is a riveting book. I cried a lot reading this.
