Since the publication of her first novel in 2008, Jesmyn Ward has established herself as arguably the most important U.S. author of the twenty-first century. This book considers the full range of her career thus far, including National Book Award鈥搘inning novels Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing, as well as Ward鈥檚 widely acclaimed memoir, Men We Reaped.
Martyn Bone thoughtfully examines key themes running throughout Ward鈥檚 writing: Black life in the U.S. South; the legacies of slavery and segregation; neoliberalism as the contemporary form of capitalism; environmental crisis in the Anthropocene; and human-animal relations. Bone also connects Ward鈥檚 work to major figures in the U.S. literary canon, with particular focus on William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison.
鈥淚t is wonderful to read a book that takes Jesmyn Ward seriously as a writer in our time and engages her work critically and respectfully. Bone manages to give an accounting for the major thematics in Ward鈥檚 work to date, and yet also opens up space for further consideration, dialogue, and critique (no easy feat, that)鈥攁ll in teachable, sparklingly clear prose. This book is critical for scholars in many overlapping fields鈥攕outhern studies, Black studies, American studies, C21 studies, and beyond.鈥鈥Joanna Davis-McElligatt, coeditor, Narrating History, Home, and Dyaspora: Critical Essays on Edwidge Danticat
鈥淎 timely, scholastic endeavor that pays careful and incisive attention to Ward鈥檚 depictions of neoliberalism in relation to racial capitalism, human-animal dynamics, environmental disasters, and slavery鈥檚 traumatic aftermath. Bone鈥檚 ecocritical perspective adds to a growing collection of scholarship on Ward鈥檚 writing while also emphasizing the impact of her work along local, regional, and global scales.鈥濃擜pryl Lewis, author, Black Feminism and Traumatic Legacies in Contemporary African American Literature
鈥The Writings of Jesmyn Ward offers a set of rich and complex readings of Ward鈥檚 works in the context of the neoliberal present. Through these meticulous and erudite analyses, Bone rightly positions Ward鈥檚 writing at the center of twenty-first century literary studies.鈥濃擜rin Keeble, author, Narratives of Hurricane Katrina in Context: Literature, Film and Television
鈥淚n the first monograph on Jesmyn Ward, Bone provides an extremely valuable introduction to the contexts and themes of the two-time National Book Award winner and MacArthur fellow. . . . Bone goes far toward filling the critical gap on Where the Line Bleeds, Ward鈥檚 first treatment of white society鈥檚 鈥榙isposable young Black men,鈥 and Men We Reaped, a memoir in the African American tradition of 鈥榳itnessing鈥 and 鈥榠nterrogating鈥 racism while also portraying 鈥榗ollective survival.鈥 Bone also explores 鈥榚choes鈥 of Dante, Faulkner, Morrison, and the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as the 鈥榮outhern Plantationocene鈥 evoked throughout his book.鈥濃Choice
