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Harper C.: Five Book Friday: Uncanny Graphic Novels (0 comment)
We are in the thick of winter here in the Pacific Northwest, which means it's dark, damp, and chilly. Rather than escaping to stories with warmer, brighter climates, I personally want nothing more than to dive deep into gothic and uncanny fiction as the wind rattles my windows at night...
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Men We Reaped: A Memoir

by Jesmyn Ward
Men We Reaped: A Memoir

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ISBN13: 9781608197651
ISBN10: 1608197654
Condition: Standard


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3Hawthorne

From Powells.com

25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die

Browse all of the exceptional memoirs that made our list.


Black Lives Matter

Staff Pick

If this book was only what it is on the surface — a memoir of Ward’s experience watching four young men, including her brother, die before any of them turned 25 — it would be among the most deeply felt and moving memoirs I’ve ever read. But this book is also a powerful investigation of how poverty, race, and the history of injustice in the Deep South have all conspired to make simply living one’s life a dangerous proposition for young black men. Ward doesn’t let her subjects off the hook for their behavior and their roles in their own downfall, but she doesn’t let us as a society off either. Recommended By Tim B., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Universally praised, Jesmyn Ward's Men We Reaped confirmed her ascendancy as a writer of both fiction and nonfiction, her Southern requiem securing its place on bestseller and best books of the year lists, with honors and awards pouring in from around the country.

Jesmyn's memoir shines a light on the community she comes from, in the small town of DeLisle, Mississippi, a place of quiet beauty and fierce attachment. Here, in the space of four years, she lost five young men dear to her, including her beloved brother — lost to drugs, accidents, murder, and suicide. Their deaths were seemingly unconnected, yet their lives had been connected, by identity and place, and as Jesmyn dealt with these losses, she came to a staggering truth: These young men died because of who they were and the place they were from, because certain disadvantages breed a certain kind of bad luck. Because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle. The agonizing reality commanded Jesmyn to write, at last, their true stories and her own.

Men We Reaped opens up a parallel universe, yet it points to problems whose roots are woven into the soil under all our feet. This indispensable American memoir is destined to become a classic.

Review

"An important, and perhaps even essential, book." San Francisco Chronicle

Review

"[Ward] chronicles our American story in language that is raw, beautiful and dangerous.…[Her] singular voice and her full embrace of her anger and sorrow set this work apart from those that have trodden similar ground." The New York Times Book Review

Review

"Heart-wrenching.…A brilliant book about beauty and death…at once a coming-of-age story and a kind of mourning song…filled [with] intimate and familial moments, each described with the passion and precision of the polished novelist Ward has become.…Ward is one of those rare writers who's traveled across America's deepening class rift with her sense of truth intact." Los Angeles Times

Review

"A memoir that is as searing as her fiction, as poignant and as timely...in a country that is supposed to be post racial but still seems hell-bent on the epidemic destruction of young black men." Edwidge Danticat, The Progressive

About the Author

Jesmyn Ward received her M.F.A. from the University of Michigan and is currently an assistant professor of creative writing at Tulane University. She is the author of the novels Where the Line Bleeds and Salvage the Bones, the latter of which won the 2011 National Book Award and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Ward grew up in DeLisle, Mississippi, and lives there now.

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Average customer rating 4.5 (2 comments)

`
Ashley Bowen-Murphy , July 23, 2016 (view all comments by Ashley Bowen-Murphy)
Everyone told me this book was beautiful and gutting but I still wasn't prepared for Ward's incredible memoir. I'd planned to read for just a half hour or so and found myself unable to break away from her story of grief and race, the south and home, growing up and forming connections in the world. While this is, absolutely, a book about several men in Ward's life that died between 200-2004, it's also a memoir of female survival. It's as. Much about losing men as it is about becoming a woman left in their wake (for good or ill). This is a fantastic book to read in conjunction with "Between the World and Me" because it tackles similar themes about black men and black bodies in the world. This book came out a few years ago but it feels like a great book to read in light of #BlackLivesMatter. Just be prepared: it's so beautiful and engrossing that even if it makes you cry, you won't want to put it down.

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kevinrbrown , July 06, 2015 (view all comments by kevinrbrown)
This book was not exactly what I was expecting, which is a good thing. Rather than a superficial treatment of why Black men in America (and these five young Black men, specifically) die, Ward points out how complex racism is. She expands on the stories of the young Black men to talk about her life, which provides insight into how racism can lead to feelings of despair. She counters that, though, with the portrayal of her mother, who is much stronger than Ward believed. Especially with the discussions of race in our country right now, this is a book worth reading.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9781608197651
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
09/16/2014
Publisher:
BLOOMSBURY BOOKS
Pages:
260
Height:
8.25
Width:
5.50
Thickness:
.75
Author:
Jesmyn Ward
Subject:
Biography-Literary

Ships free on qualified orders.
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$11.95
List Price:$17.00
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3Hawthorne

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