Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Reason I bought this #1: It takes place in Mississippi, where my mom's family is from. Parchman is specifically mentioned in the blurb on the back, and I have visited Parchman farm a time or two, as I have family who worked there (and lived on the grounds).
Reason I bought this #2: They had some books 2 for $30 at the Montreal airport, and I am a sucker for books.
The back of this book sounded good--part ghost story, part road novel--and it was good, it just took a little bit for me to get into. Still wasn't a book I couldn't put down, though.
This is told from three perspectives: Jojo, Leonie, and Richie. Jojo is a thirteen-year-old boy. He has a three-year-old sister named Kayla, and his parents are sucky. They live with his grandparents, Pop and Mam, near the coast in Mississippi. Jojo loves his grandparents and his baby sister, but not so much his parents. His mother has made it apparent that his white father who is in the penitentiary for drugs is more important than he and his sister ever will be.
Leonie is Jojo's mother, but she's one of those women who should never be a mother. She doesn't really care about her kids. It kills her that her daughter loves Jojo more than she loves Leonie, but that is the bed she has made for herself. She takes her children and her dope fiend friend, Misty, on a road trip to Parchman farm when her boyfriend is released from prison. She even lets her young son be handcuffed and have a gun pointed at his head when they are pulled over. What kind of crappy mother does that?
Richie is the spirit of a friend of Pop's from his days when he was incarcerated at Parchman. Not everyone can see Richie, but Jojo and probably Kayla can. Richie needs Pop to tell his Parchman story to the end so that his spirit can move on.
It's not terribly hard to follow, and, obviously, there's more going on, but once you get into this, you do want to see how things turn out.
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