“Mudbound,” by Hillary Jordan, 352 pages; per Amazon “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 story filled with characters as real and compelling as anyone we know.” A 2009 Alex Award winner.
If you've read this book, please leave a comment about it and whether you think it would be of interest to a wide audience of 30,000 university readers.
7 comments:
i read this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. style is very engaging and well written (though not at the level of writing as Color of the Sea). the story is important and interesting - rural Southern farmers in the 40s - race, family, lifestyle, poverty, hardship, after effects of war, are all topics that could be discussed. our students may not be familiar with many of these topics or the context, but i think that makes it more compelling - this is a central part of American History and a novel about this time would be good for them to read. i would put this as a strong contender for the book selection at this point (i have not read any others yet, so have no comparison point).
-Dominie Garcia (april 2009)
I read this book right after reading "The Good Thief" and found it more challenging with regard to writing style (a good thing) as well as content (also good). I enjoyed the book because I felt that I could relate to aspects of more than one character, and the characters themselves were pretty well developed. This was a surprisingly fast read for me, and the smaller chapters that corresponded to different characters I feel would really be a plus for those (myself included) with short attention spans.
This is a first novel for the author, but it shows incredible skill in structure, tone, and development. It won both the Bellwether Prize for Fiction and an Alex Award. It is a tragic tale of the intertwining of two families--one white, one black--in rural Mississippi immediately following the Second World War. Although the theme and setting evoke Faulkner, as does the writing style of shifting narrators, chapter by chapter, across the two families, the narrative voices are straightforward and easy to follow, so the book flows along smoothly, and it builds to such force and power at the finish that, old cynic that I am, I actually found myself crying with emotion at the end. (That is high praise for any book, especially when we live in a world that is constantly training us to react to visual triggers from film, television, or Facebook ads rather than deftly written prose.)
If I had to cite any weakness in the book, and it would be a small one, it would be that the voice that really seemed to be the author's was the voice of Laura, the white family's mother. Many of the voices of the male characters, particularly that of the older African American father, didn't seem as real to me. When I read those chapters I got the plot, I followed along the story and it still held my interest, but I didn't feel the author was empathizing with these characters in the way she did with Laura.
I would recommend this novel as a strong contender for our final selection list. It has great drama and some surprises, it teaches about injustices taken for granted in an earlier time, and it offers some characters that are complex while also supplying at least one truly heroic figure to admire and one truly despicable character to hate with relish.
This is the only book I have read thus far for the 2010-2011 selection process. Plus I am new to the committee, so I am not sure yet how this works. With all of those disclaimers in place, I will jump in!
I agree with the three previous posts: the book does evoke Faulkner (especially As I Lay Dying), and it does take place during a time in American history that many of our students do not know much about. And, it deals with issues that our still very pertinent today: race, class, rural/urban sensibilities, gender, etc. Like the other committee members point out, I think all of these are good things.
The book did move along at a quick pace, making it an easy read. As a reader, I knew the book was going to be sad (and I think readers will sense that Pappy is a powder keg waiting to blow, but we just don't know how or when). Along with the devastating turn the plot takes, though, is the speculative epilogue about what could have happened. Although some readers might take that as a cop out from a difficult ending, I saw it as another place ripe for discussion and class activities -- "how would you finish the tales of the character's lives?' for example.
In short, this seems like a strong candidate to me.
Comments from an anonymous SJSU professor:
The violence was a bit too graphic. For some of our students, it just may be too much. While I am sure all the racism and violence and intolerence happened (and more), I am wondering if this would not be better for a specific course on the subject, rather than a campus book with a very wide audience.
I loved the lyrical writing of Color of the Sea. I loved the descriptions. It was easy to get swept up in it. I felt like the writing in Mudbound was not as smooth. There were a couple of times when I wanted to put it down.
Yet, the issues of racism, intolerence, male chauvanism, poverty are all good topics for students to discuss.
I would keep this in the running. The multiple voices and themes might make it possible for students from different backgrounds to relate to(and generate some interesting discussions about identities). The violence was unsettling, but not so much that I stopped reading.
I think the novel is well written and very engaging. I wonder, though, to what extent its central theme of black/white racism in Mississippi of the 1940s will be attractive to our students. If it was a shorter book, I don't think that would be a problem, but at 320 pages, it has to hold them for a while. Though there is at least one scene of graphic violence, I wouldn't worry about it. Our students are exposed to worse on network television.
Matt Spangler
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