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Biography & Autobiography. Sociology. African American Nonfiction. Nonfiction. HTML:Named one of the Best Books of the Century by New York Magazine Two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward (Salvage the Bones, Sing, Unburied, Sing) contends with the deaths of five young men dear to her, and the risk of being a black man in the rural South. "We saw the lightning and that was the guns; and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped." -Harriet TubmanIn five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life-to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: Why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth-and it took her breath away. Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships. Jesmyn says the answer was so obvious she felt stupid for not seeing it. But it nagged at her until she knew she had to write about her community, to write their stories and her own. Jesmyn grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi. She writes powerfully about the pressures this brings, on the men who can do no right and the women who stand in for family in a society where the men are often absent. She bravely tells her story, revisiting the agonizing losses of her only brother and her friends. As the sole member of her family to leave home and pursue higher education, she writes about this parallel American universe with the objectivity distance provides and the intimacy of utter familiarity. A brutal world rendered beautifully, Jesmyn Ward's memoir will sit comfortably alongside Edwidge Danticat's Brother, I'm Dying, Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life, and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings..… (more)
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What is it like to be black in America? Let Jesmyn Ward tell you. This painful memoir by the author of the award-winning novel Salvage the Bones, takes us from her birth to her late 20s. The oldest of four children, Jesmyn’s parents were committed to raising their children in a two-parent household (something they had not benefited from themselves), but were ultimately unable to make it work. The family moved frequently, and relied heavily on family members for support during tough times. Jesmyn was luckier than most, with a benefactor who paid for her to attend a prestigious school, which paved the way for higher education that ultimately made her “successful” by typical public standards.
But most were (are) unable to escape the systems of oppression. Interspersed with chapters about Jesmyn’s childhood are portraits of young men who died far too young: 5 men in 4 years, including Jesmyn’s brother. The circumstances of each death vary, from accidents to drugs to violence, but in every case the man was enmeshed in struggles related to race and class that are difficult for those from different backgrounds to understand. Their education tapered off during high school, and even while in school they were often ignored or labeled troublemakers, and did not get the support necessary to learn and flourish. On leaving school, their employment prospects were limited, forcing some into more lucrative pursuits like dealing drugs. In some cases these men fathered children, and perpetuated a model of absent parenthood mirroring their own experience. And so the cycle continues.
Surely life isn’t really like this, for so many people? But yes, it is, and that’s what makes this book an important read. Such complex societal issues obviously can’t be solved just by reading books, but awareness can foster an environment that leads to change, through individual action taken locally and by voting people into office who are committed to making the United States a better place for all who live here.
Jesmyn Ward, author of the National Book Awrd winning
In addition to overcoming poverty and racism, Ward also had to deal with alcoholism and depression, due in large part to her family's struggles in DeLisle, her inability to find a decent job, and especially the loss of the men in her life. Her father divorced her mother after she gave birth to their fourth child, and his lack of income and presence in their lives left her, her three siblings and her mother financially distressed and emotionally wounded. In 2000 her brother Joshua was killed, and subsequently four other young men in her community died, of different causes, over the next four years, which was devastating to her and her community.
In [Men We Reaped], Ward describes the often difficult lives of these five men and their sudden deaths, in an effort to eulogize them, to tell the story of herself, her family and those closest to her, and to help those of us who didn't grow up under those oppressive circumstances, including myself, understand why men like these made the choices they did, the devastating consequences that resulted from them, and how their failed lives adversely impacts their communities, and ultimately all of us.
The reaped men are five friends and family members lost to Jesmyn Ward through specifically suicide and accidents but generally through the bleak hopeless grinding racism and poverty which infects Mississippi and all of this country.
Her escape cannot be a triumph when so many are left behind.
PLEASE read both of these books for eyes wide open.
Early settlers of DeLisle, MS called it Wolf Town because of the Wolf River that runs through it. This is where Jesmyn Ward grows up. Regardless, of the name change it always feels as if there is a predator in their midst. This predator is death. Ward’s own premature birth and early fight for survival seemed to be a precursor for the rest of her life.
Drugs, homicide, suicide, and car accidents along with a constant fight against racism and poverty took the lives of Joshua, Roger, Demond, Ronald, and Cj. These men were not perfect and Ward did not try to hide their demons. She wrote their stories in such a way that a piece of each one of them fell into your heart.
Ward did not allow the reader to recover emotionally from one story to the next because she was telling her own story simultaneously. Her mother was broken from her father’s constant infidelity and their later divorce. Ward and her siblings allowed their parent’s brokenness to seep into their own lives. This family was in constant emotional and sometime physical battles.
I’m sure I related to this book because I too grew up in rural Mississippi like Ward. While reading this book, tears were ever present. Ward wrote these tragedies with a remarkable gentleness. Jesmyn Ward is a brave woman. Roger Eric Daniels III, Demond Cook, Charles Joseph Martin, Ronald Wayne Lizana, and Joshua Adam Dedeaux’s names and lives will be forever memorialized because of the courage of one woman to write.
If I have a quibble it's that I wasn't always 100% convinced by the broadening of the story. Of course there are
I recieved this book through Goodread's First Reads.
Ward also writes fiction and I loved her last novel, [Salvage the Bones].
I finished this book a few weeks ago, so it is hard to remember exactly what I thought. The book had such great potential, but I felt it fell a little short. While the plight of the individuals in the book is very real and heartbreaking, I found the organization of the book made it hard to relate to the characters.
But her parents returned to the South, and in this memoir, Ward paints the social and literal landscape of late-20th-century small-town Mississippi, tells of her growing-up years in poverty
As in the quote above, Ward knew so many reasons to want to be away from Mississippi, and yet after years of education and work elsewhere, her childhood hometown is where she lives and teaches now. I’ve liked two now by Ward, and have designated her a “favorite” author.
Jesmyn's memoir has a unique format, starting with her family
Ward tells her story through tales of 4 young Black men she grew up with in Mississippi, all of whom died very young. They died in different ways, but all in ways that connect back to the devaluation of Black life, and the limitations placed on the dreams and goals available to the dead men in their lifetimes. The story of these men is also the story of the women who loved them, who raised them, who bore their children. Its is a story about the pain and exhaustion, physical and emotional, of those women and children left to just put down their heads and get things done. Its a story I have not heard well told, and it helped me to understand some things I had not understood before about the definition of fatherhood and the expectations placed on girls and boys nearly from birth in many communities. We need to understand the roots of a problem to make changes. The roots are exposed here, and once again the roots are strangled by systemic racism, by the ways in which we see Whiteness as the default "normal" and view success for Black people by their ability to act white, seem white. be white also-rans. Its appalling that this is still true. White folks need to get off our asses to start to change that. Ward is a beautiful writer, and her tributes do honor to the young men lost, but this book really comes together in the last chapter where she goes to the social science. I wish there had been more of that. I wanted the personal stories, but I wanted to understand them in a broader context. We need to be having a conversation about the epidemiology of racism and other types of oppression and the harm it causes. This book, the stories and the social science are a great start.
The author revealed her life very eloquently even though her life growing up wasn't very
The book was enlightening as well as heartbreaking to hear the narration of her life and her family's struggles.
I normally do not read memoirs, but I am glad I read this book. It is an eye opener. Thanks for writing this book, Ms. Ward.
This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher in return for an honest review.