Plot Review of The Novel ‘Sing Unburied Sing’ by Jesmyn Ward

Sing Unburied Sing is a Novel by Jesmyn Ward, its a boy about Jojo who is 13 years old. His mom, Leonie, is an active drug addict, and his sister Kayla looks up to Jojo as a parental figure because their mom doesn’t do much for them. They live with their grandparents, Jojo’s grandma is suffering from cancer and so she isn’t very active and 100% of the time bedridden, Jojo’s grandpa pops takes the place of Jojo’s dad as he is not seen anywhere in the picture so pops acts as a for Jojo.

When the book begins the scene is set at Jojo’s birthday, you get a first glimpse at the families poverty during this part as Jojo and pops go out to kill a goat for food. This shows their poverty because most people would just go out and buy food but instead they must kill animals for food. You also here about Leonie’s boyfriend Michael who is in prison, however, after a story from pops to Jojo about a friend he met in prison, Ritchie, it sort of foreshadows to the release of Michael. Naturally Leonie must go get him so he packs up the family leaving her parents behind as they would return soon. On the trip to the prison they take a brief stop at a friends house Jojo or Kayla do not know why. As Jojo explores the house he goes to the backyard and sees all the meth even the bag that his mom tried to hide behind her back, this is kind of the first time Jojo learns about his moms problem.

On their way back from their way back from the prison they get pulled over by cops and in a scurry his mom swallows all the meth as it is illegal, however, they still place them and handcuffs and this is the first time you hear Ritchies ghost saying to Jojo they are going to put you in chains because he is black. Despite this they release them and they are safe to go home. Jojo soon learns that when he went to the prison that in fact he released Ritchies ghost because before his ghost was stuck their. Ritchie then asks Jojo where pops is to try and discover how he died. Pops tells him when Ritchie and his friend blue were running from prison blue raped a white woman and eventually the cops caught up and skinned blue and cut off his arms and legs and despite Ritchie not being involved in the raping they were still going to take him and torture him so to save him from that pops stabs him.

Soon after we learn that Leonie’s mom finally dies from cancer this puts Leonie in a very sad state so she goes away with Michael to do meth and relieve stress leaving Jojo and Kayla on their own. The final scene as the book closes is Kayla singing.

Works Cited

1. Ward, J. (2017). Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel. Scribner.
2. Robbins, S. M. (2019). Understanding Jesmyn Ward. University of South Carolina Press.
3. Tuggle, L. R. (2018). “Sing, Unburied, Sing” and “A Streetcar Named Desire”: Comparative Analysis of Trauma and Redemption. The Southern Literary Journal, 51(1), 62-79.
4. Watts, E. (2018). A Geography of Hope: Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing and the Racial Ethics of Mourning. South Atlantic Review, 83(3), 60-77.
5. Dell’Amico, A. (2020). Eco-Thinking in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing. Studies in the Novel, 52(4), 470-490.
6. Siegrist, C. J. (2018). “A Popish Midwife” and “The Goat Child”: Trauma, Haunting, and the Gothic Imagination in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing. MELUS, 43(4), 46-68.
7. Brennan, T. (2019). Mothers, Daughters, and the Burden of Memory: Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing. In Trauma and the Contemporary Literary Response to Violence (pp. 113-127). Springer.
8. Carpenter, C. (2018). Ghosts in the Southern Gothic: Haunting and Trauma in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing. Studies in the Novel, 50(3), 275-294.
9. Balzer, A. (2018). The Preacher’s Kids: in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing. Studies in the Novel, 50(2), 218-235.
10. Byerman, K. D. (2018). “Our Lady of the Dispossessed”: Jesmyn Ward’s Southern Gothic. Mississippi Quarterly, 71(1-2), 99-119.