Because Ideas Matter...
The faculty and staff of Butler University's College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences presents
Recommended Readings
Mudbound
by Hillary Jordan, Algonquin Books, 2009
Reviewed by Judith Morrel
Mudbound, Hillary Jordan's debut novel
published in 2008, won the Bellwether Prize for fiction, a prize
awarded biennially to a first novel addressing issues of social
change. Just after the World War II, Henry McAllan uproots
his wife Laura and two young daughters from their home in Memphis
and moves them to a forlorn, unforgiving cotton farm in the
Mississippi Delta. Like many Mississippians, Henry is bound
in his very soul to the land, mud and all; Laura, city born and
bred, is not; but in 1946, she does what is expected of a wife and
struggles to raise her family and support Henry in a two-room shack
with no running water and no electricity and with her racist
father-in-law living in a lean-to in the muddy yard. The
story of hardship, racial hatred, injustice and yes, some
compassion, is told in the voices of the main characters:
Laura; Henry; Florence, a black midwife who works as a domestic for
Laura and Henry and whose husband is a share cropper on Henry's
farm; Jamie, Henry's handsome war hero brother; and Ronsel,
Florence's son, also a returning war hero. Jamie and Ronsel, both
suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, form an unlikely
friendship fueled by alcohol, which sets in motion the novel's
journey to a shocking conclusion. Mudbound, while heart-wrenching
to read, is an unforgettable and unforgiving portrait of two
families who seem trapped by their time, their place, and their
race.
- Judith Morrel is associate professor of Mathematics at
Butler University.