by Jesmyn Ward
First published 2018
Jojo lives with his grandparents Mam and Pop on a Gulf Coast farm in Mississippi. His drug-addicted mother Leonie drifts in and out of their lives, chasing highs that bring visions of her dead brother. Mam is dying of cancer while Pop holds the family together and teaches Jojo how to become a man. When Leonie learns that Michael, the white father of her children, will be released from Parchman State Penitentiary, she loads Jojo and his toddler sister Kayla into her car for the dangerous journey across the state. The road trip becomes a reckoning with family bonds, racial violence, and the ghosts that haunt Mississippi's past and present. Ward weaves together multiple voices and generations to explore how trauma passes through families and communities in the American South.
Genres: american-fiction, contemporary, family-drama, african-american-historical-fiction
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Mississippi, Gulf Coast, Parchman State Penitentiary
Period: contemporary
289 pages · Paperback · Scribner
Content warnings: racism, violence