Men we reaped, by Jesmyn Ward

“We saw the lightning and that was the guns; and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.” —Harriet Tubman

 

Although this memoir was published a year before the recent events in Ferguson, it is an especially relevant read at this time.  Ward, whose searing Salvage the bones won the 2011 National Book Award, grew up in the poverty-stricken part of rural Mississippi which was the setting of her earlier novel.  A bright girl, she was befriended by her mother’s employer, a wealthy man for whom she cleaned, and attended private schools, often as one of the only African-Americans.  Her dual life as a good student in a white school and as a member of an extended black family, including those related by blood and those more by choice, is unflinchingly depicted.  Most of her circle are caught in cycles of poverty, drug use, and drinking for both enjoyment and to escape the reality of their dead-end lives.  Early pregnancy, absent fathers, and self-destructive behavior are the norm.  Told in reverse chronology, she relates the short lives of five of the boys she grew up with, including that of her younger brother. 272 pp.