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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN num: 9781565125698
ISBN number: 156512569X
Label: Algonquin Books
Manufacturer: Algonquin Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 336
Printing Date: March 04, 2008
Publishing house: Algonquin Books
Sale Popularity Level: 10824
Studio: Algonquin Books
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
In Jordan's prize-winning debut, prejudice takes many forms, both subtle and brutal. It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband's Mississippi Delta farm—a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family's struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura's brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not—charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the grey sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.
The men and women of each family relate their versions of events and we are drawn into their lives as they become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale. As Kingsolver says of Hillary Jordan, 'Her characters walked straight out of 1940s Mississippi and into the part of my brain where sympathy and anger and love reside, leaving my heart racing. They are with me still.'
Amazon.com Review:
Jordan won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Mudbound, her very 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.
It is 1946 in the Mississippi Delta, where Memphis-bred Laura McAllan is struggling to adjust to farm life, rear her daughters with a modicum of manners and gentility, and be the wife her land-loving husband, Henry, wants her to be. It is an uphill battle every day. Things started badly when Henry's trusting nature resulted in the family being done out of a nice house in town, thus relegating them to a shack on their property. In addition, Henry's father, Pappy, a sour, mean-spirited devil of a man, moves in with them.
The real heart of the story, however, is the friendship between Jamie, Henry's too-charming brother, and Ronsel Jackson, son of sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm. They have both returned from the war changed men: Jamie has developed a deep love for alcohol and has recurring nightmares; Ronsel, after fighting valiantly for his country and being seen as a man by the world outside the South, is now back to being just another grey 'boy.'
Told in alternating chapters by Laura, Henry, Jamie, Ronsel, and his parents, Florence and Hap, the story unfolds with a chilling inevitability. Jordan's writing and perfect control of the material lift it from being another 'ain't-it-awful' tale to a heart-rending story of deep, mindless prejudice and cruelty. This eminently readable and enjoyable story is a worthy recipient of Kingsolver's prize and others as well. --Valerie Ryan
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Rated by buyers 
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One of the best books I have read in a long time! I loved the writer's style of giving each of the characters biographical chapters, written from their own distinct perspective. An absolute must-read!!
Rated by buyers 
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"Mudbound" begins with a graveyard scene that hints of vengeance, dark secrets, and injustices buried deep in the Mississippi mud. Indeed, the "stinking and oozing" mud of the Mississippi Delta becomes a metaphor for the blind hatreds of racism, the lingering horrors of war, and hidden dreams that will ultimately nourish or destroy.
One such dreamer, Henry McAllan, uproots his family from Memphis, Tennessee and mires them in an isolated, primitive "Mudbound" shack on a cotton farm he has purchased in Mississippi. His wife Laura, a "soft, city- bred woman not meant for living on the Delta," struggles with the farm's relentless mud, countless physical hardships and Henry's sour and profoundly racist `Pappy'; she is also strongly attracted to her brother in law, Jamie, a returning GI with war demons of his own to battle.
The lives of Henry's hardworking Negro tenant farmer, Hap Jackson, his strong-willed wife, Florence and son, Ronsel, a "Black Panther" Tank Battalion war hero, become enmeshed with the McAllans.' In Ronsel, Jordan illustrates the shameful indignities Negro soldiers experienced in WWII, and the far more brutal treatment they continued to suffer at the hands of white Southerners, "locked in the imagined glory of the past, [and] scared of losing what they thought was theirs."
In six alternating voices, the McAllans and Jacksons tell their gripping story. This is a risky technique, but Jordan's shifting narrative structure creates surprisingly seamless transitions, each succeeding `voice' and chapter filling in gaps, and adding substance. Poignant moments of unexpected friendship and forgiveness barely soften the novel's inevitable explosion of violence. "Mudbound" will hold you spellbound!
(I would give 4 1/2 stars if possible...not five because Pappy is a little too one dimensional)
Rated by buyers -
This was a beautiful book. I knew it was going to be wonderful because I was just about 1/4 way done and I was already mourning it's finish - the moment I would finish the story and have to say goodbye to it's characters. There were times during this story (and bear in mind I listened to the audiobook version) that I was talking back to some of the characters in not very nice words! I became very involved in this book as it touched on many emotions, leaving each one with something learned. I loved Mudbound.
Rated by buyers -
The story is compelling, the plot gripping but, as a woman, it is the female characters that evoked the greatest response in me. Both Laura and Florence are strongly protective of their families, work as hard or harder than the men, and yet are able to fight for (even demand) what is morally right for their children, their neighbors (of both races), and themselves. At a time when race relations after World War 2 were terrible, it is the women who fought for change, not by trying to be one of the boys, but by doing what is right. There's a lesson in this book for fundamentalist women masquerading as tomorrow's world leaders and change agents. The lesson? We can make this country a better place by very first taking care of our children, our neighbors and our communities.
Rated by buyers -
Both Jordan's prose and character development in this debut novel are quite satisfying. Though, the story itself, of social injustices on a farm in the Jim Crow South, seemed "familiar" and did not explore new territory....making it a bit dull. I will look forward to reading more of Jordan's works but hope they elicit a little more creativity and originality.
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