Reviews of Books by Jesmyn Ward and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Race and inclusion committee member Linda Stern wrote reviews of books by Jesmyn Ward and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
As Esch, her three brothers and their emotionally absent father prepare for Hurricane Katrina in Beau Sauvage, Mississippi, their concerns revolve around the storm. Esch’s barely visible pregnancy, and her brother Skeeter’s dog who has just given birth. They are part of a poor African American rural community and we see them hang together to survive daily life as well as hurricanes. While scraping together necessities, the bonds in the family are tested. Gripping, suspenseful, and heart-stopping. Won the National Book award in 2011.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
13-year-old Jojo and his toddler sister live with their African American grandparents in Mississippi. Their drug-addicted mother loads them in the car to drive across the state where their white father is being released from prison. Incarceration, past and present, is one of the themes of this novel in the form of the plot and the voices of those departed. The bonds and fractures in this intergenerational family are gripping. Winner of 2017 National Book Award.
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
This thoughtful book discusses the current movement against police killings in the black communities and is worth a close reading. The author, a Princeton academic, estimates that young blacks are killed at a rate twenty-one times the number of white youth. Her chapter on “black faces in high places” is particularly interesting. She discusses cities with mainly black leaders as well as the role of the Congressional Black Caucus. She sees that while some political gains have been made, economic inequality is increasing within communities of color.
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