Product Description

In Jordan's prize-winning debut, prejudice takes many forms, both subtle and brutal. It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband's Mississippi Delta farm—a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family's struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura's brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not—charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.

The men and women of each family relate their versions of events and we are drawn into their lives as they become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale. As Kingsolver says of Hillary Jordan, "Her characters walked straight out of 1940s Mississippi and into the part of my brain where sympathy and anger and love reside, leaving my heart racing. They are with me still."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #171041 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781565125698
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Amazon.com Review
Jordan won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Mudbound, her first novel. The prize was founded by Barbara Kingsolver to reward books of conscience, social responsibility, and literary merit. In addition to meeting all of the above qualifications, Jordan has written a story filled with characters as real and compelling as anyone we know.

It is 1946 in the Mississippi Delta, where Memphis-bred Laura McAllan is struggling to adjust to farm life, rear her daughters with a modicum of manners and gentility, and be the wife her land-loving husband, Henry, wants her to be. It is an uphill battle every day. Things started badly when Henry's trusting nature resulted in the family being done out of a nice house in town, thus relegating them to a shack on their property. In addition, Henry's father, Pappy, a sour, mean-spirited devil of a man, moves in with them.

The real heart of the story, however, is the friendship between Jamie, Henry's too-charming brother, and Ronsel Jackson, son of sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm. They have both returned from the war changed men: Jamie has developed a deep love for alcohol and has recurring nightmares; Ronsel, after fighting valiantly for his country and being seen as a man by the world outside the South, is now back to being just another black "boy."

Told in alternating chapters by Laura, Henry, Jamie, Ronsel, and his parents, Florence and Hap, the story unfolds with a chilling inevitability. Jordan's writing and perfect control of the material lift it from being another "ain't-it-awful" tale to a heart-rending story of deep, mindless prejudice and cruelty. This eminently readable and enjoyable story is a worthy recipient of Kingsolver's prize and others as well. --Valerie Ryan

From Publishers Weekly
Jordan's beautiful debut (winner of the 2006 Bellwether Prize for literature of social responsibility) carries echoes of As I Lay Dying, complete with shifts in narrative voice, a body needing burial, flood and more. In 1946, Laura McAllan, a college-educated Memphis schoolteacher, becomes a reluctant farmer's wife when her husband, Henry, buys a farm on the Mississippi Delta, a farm she aptly nicknames Mudbound. Laura has difficulty adjusting to life without electricity, indoor plumbing, readily accessible medical care for her two children and, worst of all, life with her live-in misogynous, racist, father-in-law. Her days become easier after Florence, the wife of Hap Jackson, one of their black tenants, becomes more important to Laura as companion than as hired help. Catastrophe is inevitable when two young WWII veterans, Henry's brother, Jamie, and the Jacksons' son, Ronsel, arrive, both battling nightmares from horrors they've seen, and both unable to bow to Mississippi rules after eye-opening years in Europe. Jordan convincingly inhabits each of her narrators, though some descriptive passages can be overly florid, and the denouement is a bit maudlin. But these are minor blemishes on a superbly rendered depiction of the fury and terror wrought by racism. (Mar.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine
Winner of Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize (2006), which recognizes an unpublished manuscript promoting social responsibility, Jordan’s debut novel exposes the racism and sexism of the Jim Crow South. Most critics embraced this topic, even while recognizing its heavy-handedness; the Washington Post noted that “the book doesn’t challenge our prejudices so much as give us the easy satisfaction of feeling superior to these evil Southerners.” Reviewers disagreed somewhat on the complexity of character development, with a few complaining of unclear motives. They agreed, however, on the power of Jordan’s plain, earthy writing (reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor’s prose, to some) and the compelling plot. If it’s too early to say that “after just one book … here’s a voice that will echo for years to come,” as the San Antonio Express-News claims, Jordan is a new author worth watching.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Customer Reviews

dark but memorable tale shows great potential
Hillary Jordan appears to be the real deal, judging from the amazing skill she displays in constructing this novel. She is able to tell a dark and troubling tale in the voices of several of the characters and make it all hang together. Actually, it more than just hangs together, it fits together almost seamlessly. As other reviewers have noted, this story focuses on the Mississippi Delta in the year 1946/47, when returning veterans of WWII knew the world was changing, but their home community did not. The realities of the racism of the time and place are explored thoroughly, but not in a melodramatic or pompous way. This novel received the Bellwether prize, which is the largest USA prize given to unpublished manuscripts and the only one that specifically promotes literature of social change. Barbara Kingsolver reviewed it in the strongest positive terms- no surprise, because it is as good as her work. Like others, I am highly interested in the next thing that Hillary Jordan will write.

A startlingly beautiful and sharp-edged debut...essential reading!
Hillary Jordan's first novel is a luminous, lovely and at times achingly painful depiction of America at a time of its greatest glory and shame. Set at the end of World War II, it follows the vastly different homecomings of two returning war heroes--one black, one white--to the Jim Crow south. Jordan uses deftly lyrical writing (judiciously salted with both humor and pathos) and a breathlessly brave approach to tell her story: a diverse chorus of different characters (black and white, male and female) weave their voices together in observations of race and rural farmlife in the 40's. The result is a delicately-choreographed, operatic tragedy that unrolls with graceful inevitability, culminating in a climactic scene that will reverberate for this reader (and writer) for years to come.

Here is a true new talent; a writer with the stylistic grace and social conscience of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor and the dramatic flair of Pat Conroy and Jodi Picoult. Mudbound will leave you stunned, impressed, painfully touched---and (like me!) eagerly anticipating its author's next book.

One of the Best Books I've Read in a Long Time
Mudbound by Hillary Jordan is without question one of the best books I have read in some time. The story of two families, one white, one black, in the Mississippi Delta immediately after the end of World War 2, tells a story of racism like nothing I have read before. The story is told by various characters in the book giving a clear picture of the time, the people and the unforgiving conditions of farming in the Mississippi Delta. I was raised and have lived most of my life in small towns in the North and have never encountered any of the racism that I know exists, and existed even more prominently during the time covered in this book. It is important, in my opinion, to make this abominable racism public and the author does that, not sugar coating anything in the exchanges between characters.
I found myself so engrossed in this book that it was almost like I wasn't reading, more like watching a play or a movie. The language flowed so beautifully. The characters were true to what they were portrayed as. I look forward to future books from Hillary Jordan.