Men We Reaped (28 page)

“Jesmyn Ward is an alchemist. She transmutes pain and loss into gold.
Men We Reaped
illustrates hardships but thankfully, vitally, it's just as clear about the humor, the intelligence, the tenderness, the brilliance of the folks in DeLisle, Mississippi. A community that's usually wiped off the literary map can't be erased when it's in a book this good.”

—Victor LaValle, author of
The Devil in Silver

“
Men We Reaped
is a fiercely felt meditation on the value of life that at once reminds us of its infinite worth and indicts us—as a society—for our selective, casual complicity in devaluing it. Ward's account of these losses is founded in a compelling emotional honesty, and graced with moments of stark poetry.”

—Peter Ho Davies, author of
The Welsh Girl

“An assured yet scarifying memoir by [a] young, supremely gifted novelist … With more gumption than many, Ward battled not only the indifferent odds of rural poverty, but also the endless racism of her classmates … A modern rejoinder to
Black Like Me, Beloved
and other stories of struggle and redemption—beautifully written, if sometimes too sad to bear.”

—Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

“Jesmyn Ward's memoir is a miracle. In it, she writes with such clarity and beauty that her discoveries and revelations could very well change the way her readers understand the world. She also makes the unbearable nearly bearable with her poetic prose and her life-affirming passion. This is fierce, brave exploration, but it is also art—timeless, universal, and unrelentingly inspired.”

—Laura Kasischke, author of
The Raising

“In this riveting memoir of the ghosts that haunt her hometown in Mississippi, two-time novelist and National Book Award–winner Ward writes intimately about the pall of blighted opportunity, lack of education, and circular poverty that hangs over the young, vulnerable African-American inhabitants of DeLisle, Mississippi … Ward has a soft touch, making these stories heart-breakingly real through vivid portrayal and dialogue.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Jesmyn Ward returns to the world of her first two books, but here in the mode of nonfiction. A clear-eyed witness to the harrowing stories of ‘men we reaped,' she quickens the dead and brings them vividly alive again. An eloquent, grief-steeped account.”

—Nicholas Delbanco, author of
Lastingness: The Art of Old Age

“Jesmyn Ward left her Gulf Coast home for education and experience, but it called her back. It called on her in most painful ways, to mourn. In
Men We Reaped
, Jesmyn unburies her dead, that they may live again. And through this emotional excavation, she forces us to see the problems of place and race that led these men to their early graves. Full of beauty, love, and dignity,
Men We Reaped
is a haunting and essential read.”

—Natasha Trethewey, U.S. Poet Laureate
and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of
Native Guard
and
Thrall

“
Men We Reaped
illuminates, with great compassion and insight, the struggles of black men living in rural Southern poverty and the women who love them and their families who struggle to survive. But Jesmyn Ward is a surpassingly fine writer, and so she accomplishes far more. Through these quite specific lives she reveals the deep and universal issues of our shared humanity. The tears we weep with Jesmyn Ward are for all of us, are about all of us.”

—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author
of
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

Copyright © 2013 by Jesmyn Ward

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018.

Some of the names, locations, and details of events in this book have been changed to protect the privacy of people involved.

Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ward, Jesmyn.
Men we reaped : a memoir / Jesmyn Ward.—First U.S.
edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN 978-1-60819-757-6
1. Ward, Jesmyn. 2. African American women authors—
Biography. 3. Rural poor—Mississippi—Biography.
4. African American men—Mississippi. I. Title.
PS3623.A7323Z46 2013
813′.6—dc23
[B]
2013013600

First U.S. edition 2013
Electronic edition published in September 2013

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