Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
March 17, 2008
Winner of the Bellwether Prize for fiction, Mudbound is a very powerfully written story set mostly on a farm in the Mississippi delta after World War II. The Bellwether Prize was established by Barbara Kingsolver to recognize socially responsible fiction by new authors. This title deals with racism, sexism, and some of the effects of war and social change as part of the story. The story is told from multiple points of view, with each of the main characters “telling” a chapter in chronological order and then having other characters “talk” until time has moved forward and it’s again their turn for a chapter.This is the kind of writing and story-telling that I simple can’t put down once I get started. The quote from Barbara Kingsolver on the cover is “This is storytelling at the height of its powers….Hillary Jordan writes with the force of a Delta storm.” How true.
