I have managed to complete another book for my Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. This novel was Mudbound by Hillary Jordan which won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Fiction.
The novel is set on a cotton farm in the 1940s and the story is told by six people, three of those voices being white the other three being black and bit by bit, the six voices unravel into a powerful story containing mindless racial violence, adulterous sex, and patricide. The realistic portrayal of the hatred towards negroes is to the forefront of this novel and the damage that is done to both white and black families is the end result of this story.
From the cover:
Two men return from war to the McAllan cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta in 1946. One is Jamie McAllan: charming, handsome, and sensitive to the plight of his sister-in-law Laura who hates rural living. The other war hero is Ronsel Jackson, the eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan Farm, who finds he still has to fight the bigotry of his own countrymen. It is the unlikely friendship of these two brother-in-arms, and the passions they arouse in others, that drive this powerful debut novel.
Hillary Jordan‘s characters come alive and stirred strong emotions in me. I felt such anger toward the small-minded men who fought against the inevitable changes in society with violence and cruelty. I especially enjoyed that the chapters were told from various points of view, which gives you a deeper insight into the actions and motivations of the characters. A moving story which I highly recommend.
You can find a negative review of the book here if you want to compare.
Gippsland Granny 