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Mudbound
Hillary Jordan
#UC0562
Hardcover, 328 pages; 2008
$18.36
…my father-in-law was murdered because I was born plain rather than pretty. That’s one possible beginning. There are others: Because Henry saved Jamie from drowning in the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Because Pappy sold the land that should have been Henry’s. Because Jamie flew too many bombing missions in the war. Because a Negro named Ronsel Jackson shone too brightly. Because a man neglected his wife, and a father betrayed his son, and a mother exacted vengeance. I suppose the beginning depends on who’s telling the story.
In Mudbound, a handful of characters take turns telling the story of life, love, and murder on a farm in the Mississippi Delta in the 1940s. Laura McAllan, one of the novel's captivating narrators, is struggling to adjust to the rural life her husband, Henry, so deeply loves (and surprised her with), when two charming men—one white (Henry's brother), one black (the son of Laura's housekeeper)—return from service in WWII. The soldiers soon stir up multiple storms of passion and violence in the Jim Crow South. Winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, this powerful debut novel will leave your heart racing.
(CH)
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