Salvage the Bones

By Jesmyn Ward

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'A brilliantly pacy adventure story ... Ward writes like a dream' - The Times

'Fresh and urgent' - New York Times

'There's something of Faulkner to Ward's grand diction' - Guardian
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WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

Hurricane Katrina is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. He's a hard drinker, largely absent, and it isn't often he worries about the family.

Esch and her three brothers are stockpiling food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; at fifteen, she has just realized that she's pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pit bull's new litter, dying one by one. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting.

As the novel progresses through twelve dramatic days, this unforgettable family - motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce - pulls itself up to face another day.
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'Masterful ... A palpable sense of desire and sorrow animates every page ... Salvage the Bones has the aura of a classic about it' - Washington Post

'Beautifully written ... A powerful depiction of grinding poverty, where somehow, amid the deprivation, the flame of filial affection survives and a genuine spirit of community is able to triumph over everything the system and nature can throw at it' - Daily Mail

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Dec 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781408841310

Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the historic winner—first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.

Reviews for Salvage the Bones

[leahmo-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, the radio warns of an impending hurricane, but the Batiste children aren’t worried. Only their hard-drinking, widowed father is concerned that this hurricane will be worse than all of the others his family has experienced.As Daddy prepares for the hurricane, Esch, our fifteen-year-old narrator, struggles with her discovery that she is pregnant; Skeeter takes care of his prized pit bull, China, and her newborn puppies; Randall practices for an important basketball game; and Junior, the youngest, is just gets into everyone else’s business.Beginning ten days before Hurricane Katrina and ending the day after, Salvage the Bones is a coming of age story set against the backdrop of Southern poverty and one of the greatest natural disasters to hit the U.S. Esh is a young girl surrounded by brothers and male friends, and in an environment that doesn’t empower her, she finds it easier to sleep with the boys who are after her than to resist. As a result, she becomes pregnant by Skeeter’s best friend, Manny, who uses her for sex but doesn’t have any real feelings for her. However, being a love-starved 15-year-old, Esch is in love with him and desperately wishes for him to care about her.I found Esch to be a very believable character. She is more in love with the idea of Manny than with his actual character — who hasn’t been there? She also has this naive hope that the man who is screwing her will change and love her, which is frustrating to read but relatable. Perhaps my favorite thing about her is her love of Greek mythology. She is assigned to read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, a book that I devoured in high school, and is obsessed with the Medea story. She keeps trying to draw parallels between herself and this mythological woman, and it felt so realistic.Jesmyn Ward also does a great job of portraying the life of this poor family and the culture of their community. It’s not a culture I’m familiar with, and I was impressed by Ward’s ability to write about the Batiste’s poverty in a neutral way; it is simply a fact of their existence, and they get along the best they can.However, her descriptions of dog fighting may be problematic for some readers. She portrays dog fighting not as abusive but as an accepted part of the culture, and there is one long description of dog fighting that is very graphic and violent. It was hard to read, and I was revolted by the attitude the boys have that fighting their dogs is a matter of macho honor.Ward’s writing is gorgeous, full of ice and fire and lush descriptions. Her descriptions of the woods are lovely, her writing about the fierce power of the hurricane is glorious, and Esch’s observations of Katrina’s aftermath are heartbreakingly powerful. However, as much as I love rich prose, the metaphors were sometimes a little too thick on the ground — and how often does she really need to describe the sweat glinting off her characters’ bodies?I would definitely recommend reading Salvage the Bones. The writing is beautiful, lyrical, and rhythmic, and Esh makes an intriguing narrator. It’s also an interesting look into another culture and has interesting themes of family loyalty and the meaning of motherhood.More book reviews at Books Speak Volumes.

[alexrichman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Grimy and heartfelt and grim and sweet, this is a really great book. The final section is memorably eerie, not unlike The Road - only based on our real, very recent past.

[lisa02476 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The book gathers poetry and intensity as the hurricane approaches

[decaturmamaof2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was such a hard book to read -- the writing was gorgeous, but the story is heartbreaking and will pull at you. I had to put it down several times. I'm very glad I read it though.

[beth.clarke · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I would have enjoyed more about the hurricane and less about the teenage sex and dog fighting.

[schufman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reading this book felt like riding waves. The protagonist/narrator has a heart clenched tight around her family. Even as everything around her fails and lets her down, they are knit into her very existence. The narrow days are matching steadily toward a storm, literal and figurative, and she is coping every way she knows how. This book is a snapshot, an imagining, a fight, a lesson, an admonishment. It asks questions that demand answers: What is family when it hurts you? What is government worth when it ignores pain? When destitution and poverty are the black inheritance (a forcible inheritance by us whites, I add), how can all of us hope to build a grounded future?

[pwaites_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I would not have picked up Salvage the Bones if it wasn't assigned for school, but I'm glad I read it. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to and got really involved. It has a sort of addicting quality to it.From the back: A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch’s father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn’t much to save. Lately, Esch can’t keep down what food she gets; she’s fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull’s new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child’s play and short on parenting.Jesmyn Ward is a very good writer, especially when it comes to communicating emotions. On the other hand, Salvage the Bones can be vague and confusing at points.Reading this, I felt a lot of sympathy for Esch. She's a poor fourteen year old girl with a dead mother and low self worth. Yes, she makes some mistakes, but I think they are understandable given her circumstances. From the beginning it's clear that Esch is very intelligent - she talks about how much her English class means to her, and she's constantly referring to Jason and Medea. It's a pleasure to see her find her strength by the end of the book.I think this should be fairly obvious, but if you're going to enjoy Salvage the Bones you need to suspend moral judgement. A girl in a our small discussion group spent a lot of time being angry at Esch for becoming pregnant, and she really didn't get anything out of the book. There's also a dog fighting sequence which was pretty rough to read.Salvage the Bones takes place over twelve days, with the threat of the impending hurricane looming over everything. This helped give it a sense of urgency and foreboding that worked very well for it.I think Salvage the Bones dealt a lot with the idea of motherhood. Esch is obviously about to become a mother, and her brother's dog has just given birth. What I got from the book is the idea that motherhood makes you stronger.This was an unexpected find for me, and I don't really know who I would recommend it to.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.

[loveatfirstbook · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You really just need to pick up Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. I could just end my review right there.But I guess I won’t. I’ll tell you a little more.Over the course of twelve days, you learn about a poor family in Mississippi, before, during, and after a large hurricane sweeps through town. You may have heard of this hurricane. It’s Katrina.Esch’s father is very concerned about the hurricane, but he doesn’t stay sober enough to make sure all of the plans go through properly. For the full review, visit Love at First Book

[asxz-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Outstanding. A fine, fine novel filled with compassion, filial love and dogfighting.

There were a couple of set pieces in here that took my breath away - running through the woods after stealing from the neighbors, everything around Randall's basketball game, THE dogfight and then the arrival of Katrina. But the in between bits are equally stunning - Esch's body awareness, Skeetah's stubbornness and Junior's fragility, and the giant ache of motherlessness that affects them all and binds them to each other. Beautiful.

[wellreadcatlady · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Salvage the Bones is about a family living in Mississippi in 2005 as Katrina is getting ready to hit. The focus is on Esch being pregnant, her brothers, dog fighting, her alcoholic that sometimes there father and the impending hurricane in the Gulf. The kids mother died giving birth to the youngest child and they have pretty much been left to fend for themselves making them a close knit family. I went in expecting the book to be more about the family preparing, fighting and surviving the hurricane and it isn’t, it was still a good read, but I was looking forward to that based on the description. Some scenes are hard to read, like puppies being born, dog fights, and detailed injuries. They are hard to read because they are well written to the point it makes you cringe. With that said, I did not like the dog fighting parts. There was some glamorizing of it and that annoyed me. I’m giving it three stars because it was an interesting read, but I think there was just too much going on to make it an emotional read. It was almost there, but not quite.

[sraelling · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set in rural Mississippi just 10 days before Katrina strikes. Randall (basketball may be his way out), Skeetah (raising & fighting pit bulls may be his), Esch (female narrator - discovers she's pregnant, she has no way out), Junior ( 9 yrs younger - their mother died during childbirth), Daddy (alcoholic). Sad story, but with a ray of hope at the end.

[indygo88 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Esch, 15 years old, lives with her father & three brothers near the gulf coastal region of Mississippi. Her family is poor, she & her siblings are motherless, and her father drinks moderately. Each family member is dealing with their own personal struggles, and in the meantime, Hurricane Katrina is on its way in. This was not an easy read for me. The story is fairly dark and depressing and it includes a few somewhat disturbing scenes. I would describe it as very raw and visceral. I thought it was well written, but I often found myself just not enjoying the story. Perhaps it was just outside my white-bread comfort zone and if that is indeed the case, I may need to start broadening my reading horizons a bit more. I will be anxious to discuss this at our book club's next meeting, and I do still want to read Jesmyn Ward's more recent novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing.

[maryreinert · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This has had such outstanding reviews, but it is grim to the core. What some call beautiful writing, in places, I was just confused, and at other times, caught by the beauty of the writing style. Esch is the only girl in a motherless family in rural Mississippi. Her life is overshadowed by the needs and wants of all the men around her. Her brother, Randall, is a promising basketball player; her brother Skeetch is consumed by caring for an fighting a white pit bull named China; her younger brother, Junior, is needy for love and attention. Fifteen year old Esch is taken advantage of by all the men in her life but especially by Manny, a neighbor, and fellow dog fighter. Esch is raped repeatedly but is tolerant of it as she so desperately wants Manny's love. This is a story of a totally dysfunctional family, but one that still hangs together especially when Hurricane Katrina hits. Their home is destroyed along with the community where they live. Some of the scenes of the rape in a public bathroom and the dog fight in the woods are difficult to read.

[norabelle414 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fifteen-year-old Esch lives with her three brothers and their dad on the gulf coast of Mississippi. It's late August, 2005. Over the course of eleven days Esch spends time with her brothers and her brothers' friends and her dad. Her oldest brother is trying to get a basketball scholarship, her middle brother's champion fighting pitbull has newborn puppies, and her youngest brother generally gets into trouble. And at the end of eleven days is Hurricane Katrina.This book was easier to get through than I expected, and I mostly enjoyed reading it. There was a lot in the middle of the book that was about dog fighting that I did not care for at all. But most of the book is about a family who loves each other basically, and realistically. They are neither too rough (not even the alcoholic dad) nor inspirationally saccharine. This is not so much a book about what happened during Hurricane Katrina, or what life was like afterward, or what recovery was like. It's about the lives people had before, and what they had to lose. While the plot didn't especially speak to me, I loved reading about this family and I would gladly do so again.

[meganelise1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's just so good.

[abbeyhar · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A moving and interesting story. I will be interested in reading this writer as she matures - I thought the writing had a lot of wonderful elements, but there were at least three similes per page which got very tiring, very quickly.

I think this would be a great book for middle schoolers to learn about katrina. And also similes. Although the teen pregnancy and dog fighting might keep it off many teacher's shelves

[adonisguilfoyle · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Why do I keep finding books that contain animal cruelty, which is exactly the last thing I want to read about? This novel, in the main about Hurricane Katrina, also features dog fighting, which is so primitive a 'sport' that only small-membered men would ever want to participate, and teenage pregnancy, thrown in for good measure. I thought I was reading about Depression era Mississippi, so backwards are the characters, until the storm they're preparing for is named as Katrina (2005). The author lived through the devastation, so the atmosphere and sense of danger are the strongest elements of the story. I felt sorriest for China the dog and her puppies, though.

[arubabookwoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have no problem recommending this National Book Award winner to anyone. It takes place in a small Mississippi Gulf Coast town over the 10 or so days as Hurricane Katrina is building in the coast. The characters are real and endearing. Esch, the 14 year old narrator, is the surrogate mother for her three brothers (Their mother died giving birth to the youngest brother; the two other brothers are older than Esch). She is grappling with the fact that she may be pregnant. Her oldest brother Randall is a high school basketball star who lacks the means to go to an important basketball camp. Skeetah has a pitbull named China, who has just given birth to a litter of puppies. Despite his clearly conveyed deep love for his dog, Skeetah endangers her in brutal pitbull dog fights. He hopes to win the funds to allow Randall to attend the basketball camp. The youngest child, Junior, just wants to make sure that he doesn't miss out on anything. The hurricane remains in the background for much of the book. The children are vaguely aware that it is out there, but are not at all apprehensive. Ward, however, skillfully builds the tension each day, to the point that I began to wonder how she was ever going to pull off the drama of the storm itself. Needless to say, she did.

[yvonne.sevignykaiser · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I can see why this book won the National Book Award, you could feel the depths of the poverty and the wrath of the storm. Although the Hurricane is only two chapters you could sense a storm brewing up to the point of the actual hurricane. The dog fight scenes are horrific and hard to understand how any honor can be found in this activity is beyond me and it is clear that it is done illegally. The storm is not the only force of destruction in this story but it is the force that allows for a chance of new beginnings.

[gayla.bassham · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a great novel, the best I've read so far this year. I wasn't hooked immediately; the novel is told from Esch's point of view and it took me a while to settle into her voice. Once I did, though, it made for a really compelling read. The chapter that describes Hurricane Katrina is one of the finest pieces of writing I've read in some time; it's haunting, and lovely, and perfect.

[cjservis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Powerful and poetic. Jesmyn Ward creates a vivid world of Southern poverty in the days leading up to and through Hurricane Katrina as seen through the eyes of a motherless fifteen-year-old African-American who has just found out she's pregnant. This is a story about the meaning of family and community.

[mjlivi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Bloody hell. This is a tough, tough book to read - a poor black family in rural Louisiana somewhere scraping lives together in the shadow of the looming Hurricane Katrina. The writing is stunning - building dread and sadness throughout, bringing out the tough bonds forged between siblings and completely occupying the voice of Eche, the 14 year old narrator. Like the storm itself, Salvage the Bones builds and builds, slowly upping the tension, before exploding into a finale as ragged, breathless and overwhelming as the hurricane.

[joyhclark · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I finished this one last night, and I'm still digesting it, most likely will be for some time. This is a beautiful, brutal, heartbreaking portrait of rural, poverty-stricken Mississippi during the time leading up to, during, and following Hurricane Katrina. The hurricane itself is in the background for most of the book, which is really how she was until she came ashore with full force and destroyed the Mississippi gulf coast. The book is more about family, love, and loss, with a young 14-year-old pregnant girl at the center. It's not an easy read, with punches to the gut coming all too frequently, but it's beautiful and not to be missed.

[bookmagic_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Really good story but also quite depressing. This is the kind of book everyone should read but no one will re-read.This is the story of Esch and her family, dirt poor, motherless and living in rural Mississippi right before Hurricane Katrina hits. I rarely cry but this made me tear up. It is disturbing knowing that people live like this in our own country. I really hated the dog fighting scenes, though. Wondering about the fate of China, her brother's beloved pit bull, an her puppies, was just as nail-biting as the rest of the book.

[cherylwhatley · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

wonderful and moving

[pbirch01 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was surprised at how much I struggled to get through this book. I found the writing very hard to follow. Sometimes the writing was simple and sounded like something the protagonist would say or think and at other times it was straight out of a literary magazine. The author has an MFA and this certainly shows in her writing. I often felt like I was reading a required book for school. I did find the characters believable and found the writing about the hurricane itself to be quite descriptive but neither of those were enough to carry the story as a whole.

[amyshaff · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had a hard time reading this book. I was waiting for Katrina to hit the coast but found the descriptions of the dog raising and dog fighting to be brutal subject matter and tough to get through. Despite my squeamishness, it's a powerful coming of age story about a pregnant teenager who discovers her own power and voice in a world that's been ravaged by poverty, addiction and epic destruction by hurricane Katrina in the bayou of Louisiana

[jolynne-4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book left me stunned!

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A superb novel, grim and desperate but also beautiful. Published for adults, but a story I can see some older teen readers appreciating. An example of Ward's stunning prose:

"I will tie the glass and stone with string, hang the shards above my bed, so that they will flash in the dark and tell the story of Katrina, the mother that swept into the Gulf and slaughtered. Her chariot was a storm so great and black the Greeks would say it was harnessed to dragons. She was the murderous mother who cut us to the bone but left us alive, left us naked and bewildered as wrinkled newborn babies, as blind puppies, as sun-starved newly hatched baby snakes. She left us a dark Gulf and salt-burned land. She left us to learn to crawl. She left us to salvage. Katrina is the mother we will remember until the next mother with large, merciless hands, committed to blood, comes."

[katieanyc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I quite liked this NBA-winner. Ward is writing within a well-established genre and knows it, but she uses it well and honors her predecessors. What makes it such a moving, universal story to me is that essentially it's about vulnerability: of poverty, of gender, of hope and striving, of love itself. Beautifully told.