One thing I'm going to change, though, is all the links to Amazon.ca and Amazon.com. I figure that if you're here, you must be somewhat intelligent and computer savvy, so you can track them down on your own.
So... Mudbound by Hillary Jordan. Good book.
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.)
I liked it. It wasn't a book that kept me up at night, but it was a well-written, enjoyable story. I rooted for some of the characters and hated some of the others. I know you're supposed to hate the father-in-law, but I also found myself oozing with serious dislike for the husband. Who does that to a woman? Buy a farm and inform the wifey she's giving up everything she knows to live in horrid conditions and tolerate her jackass of a father-in-law It made me happy that I was born in modern day times.
One point, though: I almost wish the author had written a book to focus more on Jamie and Ronsel. I'd have liked to read more about their stories.
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