Sing, Unburied, Sing is a searing and profound Southern odyssey by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward. In her first novel since the acclaimed Salvage the Bones, Ward brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America.

Drawing on influences like Morrison and Faulkner, The Odyssey and the Old Testament, Ward provides an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi's past and present that is both an intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle.

Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Their mother, Leonie, is a drug-addicted presence who is both tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother when she’s high. Mam is dying of cancer, and Pop tries to run the household while teaching Jojo how to be a man.

When the children’s father is released from prison, Leonie takes her kids on a journey to Parchman Farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary. The trip is rife with danger and promise.

Sing, Unburied, Sing grapples with the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and explores the power, and limitations, of family bonds. Rich with Ward’s distinctive, musical language, this novel is an essential contribution to American literature.