Mudbound
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Product Description
In Jordan’s prize-winning debut, prejudice takes many forms, both devious and brutal. It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her spouse’s Mississippi Delta farm—a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family tree’s struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura’s brother-in-law, is everything her spouse is not—charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.
The men and women of each family tree tell their versions of events and we are drawn into their lives as they become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale. As Kingsolver says of Hillary Jordan, “Her characters walked straight out of 1940s Mississippi and into the part of my brain where sympathy and rage and like reside, leaving my heart racing. They are with me still.”Amazon.com Review
Jordan won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Mudbound, her first novel. The prize was founded by Barbara Kingsolver to reward books of conscience, social responsibility, and literary merit. In addition to meeting all of the above qualifications, Jordan has written a tale filled with characters as real and compelling as anyone we know.
It is 1946 in the Mississippi Delta, where Memphis-bred Laura McAllan is struggling to adjust to farm life, rear her daughters with a ounce of manners and propriety, and be the wife her land-loving spouse, Henry, wants her to be. It is an uphill battle every day. Things ongoing terribly when Henry’s trusting scenery resulted in the family tree being done out of a nice house in town, thus relegating them to a shack on their property. In addition, Henry’s father, Pappy, a sour, mean-spirited devil of a man, moves in with them.
The real heart of the tale, but, is the friendship between Jamie, Henry’s too-charming brother, and Ronsel Jackson, son of sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm. They have both returned from the war changed men: Jamie has developed a deep like for alcohol and has recurring nightmares; Ronsel, after fighting fearlessly for his country and being seen as a man by the world outside the South, is now back to being just another black “boy.”
Told in alternating chapters by Laura, Henry, Jamie, Ronsel, and his parents, Florence and Hap, the tale unfolds with a chilling inevitability. Jordan’s writing and perfect control of the material lift it from being another “ain’t-it-dreadful” tale to a heart-rending tale of deep, mindless prejudice and cruelty. This eminently readable and enjoyable tale is a worthy recipient of Kingsolver’s prize and others as well. –Valerie Ryan
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I agree that Hillary Jordan weaves her words effortlessly in this novel, but it took me such a long time to become engaged in the tale……maybe by page 50. It seemed disjointed to me and I had to keep reviewing previous chapters to remind myself who the characters were.
I would recommend reserving it from your local library rather than spending $15-$20 for a personal copy.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
That there were many levels of racism in the South in the late 1940s is the most powerful revelation of this novel. Pappy, the eldest member of the McAllen family tree, is the virulent racist. His oldest son, Henry, who owns the Mississippi Delta farm they live on is a moderate racist and his brother, Jamie, is on the enlightened side, although even he displays some racist tendencies when he finds out Ronsel Jackson, the young black man who lives as a tenant farmer or share cropper on the farm, had relations with a white woman when he fought in World War II. The tales of the McAllens and the Jacksons intertwine when Jamie and Ronsel become friends and share liquor. They’re both back from the war and struggling to resume life in the Delta, where racism infects everything. When Jamie lets Ronsel sit in the front seat of the truck when they drive in from town, Pappy and Henry are offended, with Pappy issuing a threat before Henry goes to talk w/ Ronsel’s father, Hap, the long term tenant farmer who doesn’t want to rock the boat. But Ronsel does and he pays the fee when Pappy finds the letter from his German lover in the truck. The letter informed Ronsel that he is the father of a son and she sent a picture, asking him to come back and live with them. Before he can choose what to do, he is apprehended by Pappy and a few townsmen who are members of the Klan. Jamie tries to rescue Ronsel but he is overwhelmed, with Pappy demanding he determine Ronsel’s fate, so that Pappy and his friends can escape guilt. As the book ends, Ronsel is mute, with his tongue cut out, and wondering how he’ll live his life, determined to somehow live with his disability and possibly march some day with Martin Luthur King. The profound tale is perfectly told, but it loses its luster near the end, as it comes across as formulaic. That Ronsel should be abused by the Klan doesn’t seem original, although the portrayal of the different levels of racism among the McAllens is.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
Excellent book. Condition was fine. I loved the book. Manner of language was prompt.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
Being an avid reader, I was really looking forwards to settling in for a excellent read. Not so… this is not a feel excellent book or one you particularly want to remember either.. I’m sorry but I establish no humor in this at all. This book has a lot of John Grisham’s “The Painted House” storyline and also a small of Kent Haruf “Where you once belonged” but not even close to persons tales that gripped us in with the characters and plot and had humor. I got tired of the disjointed jumping chapter after chapter and it was so predictable with a lot of unnecessary brutal graphic descriptions. Find a used one or get it at the library because it is not worth the $.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
In Mudbound Ms Jordan chose to replicate racial stereotypes with word pictures that provide small more insight into racism than the centerfolds of Playboy provide about women.
Her depictions of Hap, Florence and their family tree are idealized to such an extent that they fail to adequately described the heap struggles faced by on the breadline Blacks in the 40’s.
Her depictions of racists are so shallow and one-dimensional that they fail to provide a clue about what drives them to evil.
Mudbound’s final chapter is a mockery of the struggle required to escape poverty and prejudice. . .the equivalent of “and then they lived happily ever after.”
At the end of the day, Mudbound is a form of intellecutal pornography which uses highly charged images to sell a product but adds nothing meaningful to our understanding of poverty and prejudice.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5