Sing, Unburied, Sing

The novel focuses on a family in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. It opens on the thirteenth birthday of Jojo, at the home of his grandparents, Pop and Mam, where he often acts as a parent to his three-year-old sister, Kayla. When their father, Michael, telephones to say that he is being released from Parchman prison, their mother, Leonie, takes both children on the road trip to collect him.

Pop has his own history with Parchman, which he begins to tell Jojo, and Mam’s cancer is getting worse. It is Jesmyn Ward’s third novel, published in 2017.