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The Bellweather Prize is an award founded by Barbara Kingsolver to recognize works of social responsibility. Mudbound is one of the most harrowing novels I've read about life and racial tensions in the Deep South of the 1940s.
Each chapter is narrated by a different person. Written by a less gifted author this would have been a very scattered story. Every character in this book has his own unique voice, and therefore the story is very coherent and keeps the attention of the reader. This is a moving and wonderful book.
I should have a special category of books that keep me up past midnight when I have work the following day. If I ever do create such a category this book will be at the top of that list.
Joshilyn Jackson = Southern Gothic. Not antebellum Southern Gothic but trailer trash redneck Southern Gothic. She's been on my 'to read' authors list since her first book "Gods in Alabama" was published several years ago. Jackson writes well about blood ties and their strength, a theme that runs through all her books to date.
There's a great deal of family squabbling, angst, marriage drama and the like all of which are part and parcel of any kind of fiction that is geared towards women. There's also the Southern Gothic favorite, the Undisclosed Family Secret. There is a murder mystery which the whole story revolves around. All in all an engaging plot with various subplots helping carry the story along. A very readable 320 pages.
Women should enjoy this novel, especially those who like a family tale entwined with a murder mystery with both parts carrying about equal weight.
Lalita Tademy's semi-fictionalized history about three generations of women in her mother's family is an absorbing read. For people who've read Alex Hayley's 'Roots' this is a woman-centric and shorter novel of the same genre. The story is set in a Creole community, and the language, the society and the rules are somewhat different from the usual fictional books of slavery in the Southern states.
The story is interesting to me because it's written from a woman's perspective. The female characters are the strong ones; the men play rather marginal roles here, and their characters seem less developed. The setting and the descriptions of Creole life make the reader require little effort to imagine life in the 19th and early 20th centuries in Louisiana.
This books was a selection of Oprah's book club, and should appeal to women readers.
The Bellweather Prize is an award founded by Barbara Kingsolver to recognize works of social responsibility. Mudbound is one of the most harrowing novels I've read about life and racial tensions in the Deep South of the 1940s.
