by Rae Cine
I first fell in love with Jesmyn Ward’s prose when I read her 2017 National Book Award winning novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing. I don’t know how many times I’ve read it over the years. Jojo struck my heart at the very beginning. I do love a vulnerable character, a young character forced to grow into their adulthood at a much too young age, because this is the reality for so many children, a reality that “society” prefers to ignore. And therein lies one of the novel’s many values—its power to connect with the morals and mortalities readers bring to it.
We meet Jojo in the opening lines, a dark and uncertain space:
I like to think I know what death is. I like to think that it’s something I could look at straight. When Pop tell me he need my help and I see that black knife slid into the belt of his pants, I follow Pop out the house, try to keep my back straight, my shoulders even as a hanger; that’s how Pop walks. I try to look like this is normal and boring so Pop will think I’ve earned these thirteen years, so Pop will know I’m ready to pull what needs to be pulled, separate innards from muscle, organs from cavities. I want Pop to know I can get bloody. Today’s my birthday…. (1)
Read the full essay at Eckleburg.
Where Moral Authority Begins
Part I: Toni Morrison’s Beloved
Part II: Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina
Part III: Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God
Part IV: Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing
Rae Cline’s debut novel, Precious Ugly (7.13 Books), is a work of Appalachian literary fiction. It was a finalist for the Curt Johnson Prose Award and CRAFT’s First Chapters Contest. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, North American Review, and StoryQuarterly. She is the founding editor of Eckleburg and lives in New York City.