Salvage the bones, by Jesmyn Ward

Covering a period of twelve eventful days, as this short novel opens, China, a pure white pit bull, is giving birth to four puppies.  Her teenaged owner, Skeetah, watches anxiously, and there are flashbacks to another birth seven years earlier, which took the life of his mother when she had Junior, the last of the three brothers.  China is a successful fighter, and each puppy may bring $200 to this poverty-stricken African-American family and allow the eldest boy, Randall, a chance at basketball camp and where he may perhaps catch the eye of a professional scout. The story, however, is told from the viewpoint of Esch, the sister who is younger than Randall and Skeetah.  Another main character is Katrina – the epic hurricane bearing down on the Louisiana coast where the siblings live with their alcoholic father. Esch has had casual sex with her brothers’ friends for several years and is just beginning to suspect that she is pregnant at fifteen.  A bright, if un-parented, girl, she loves to read and her current obsession is with the story of Medea.  This ancient Greek myth also frames the narrative.  It is a very hard book to read and overwhelmingly sad.  The characters are not people one would normally identify with or feel enormous sympathy for, but one comes to care deeply about the family, China and her puppies.  I can understand why it was selected for the National Book Award. 258 pp.