Hilary Jordan - Mudbound

Reviewed by Maggie Perkovic on 27th November 2008
The story is written about a period leading up to and after the second world war.
Set in the deep south of America it describes in one part how the black community served in the war as almost equals and then were forced back into the bigoted and destructive communities that lived in the South and of course believed in the superiority of the ‘whites’.
Through the story runs the thread of a family trying to make a living on a farm where the rains brought mud and more mud onto and into their limited habitation. When Henry McAllan moves his city bred wife, Laura, to a cotton farm in the Mississippi delta in 1946, she finds herself in a place both foreign and frightening.
Henry’s love of rural life is not shared by Laura, who struggles to raise their children under the watchful eye of her hated, racist, father-in-law. When it rains the water rises up and swallow the bridge leading to town, stranding the family in a sea of mud.
As the war ends two young men return from Europe to help work on the farm. Jamie McAllan is everything his older brother is not and is sensitive to Laura’s plight, while Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the Black share croppers who live on the farm, comes home from war with the shine of a hero, only to face more dangerous battles against the ingrained bigotry of his own countrymen. These two unlikely friends become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale.

The author builds the tension slowly and meticulously, so when the shocking denouement arrives, it is both inevitable and devastating. A compelling tale.
‘The story is incredibly dramatic. It's told by each character in turn, so you hear lots of different voices as the tale progresses. My hair was on end for much of the book and I cried at the ending, which is heart-wrenching'.
From the author in an interview:
'Mudbound started as a short writing exercise in grad school. The assignment was to write 3 pages in the voice of a family member, so I decided to write about my grandparents’ farm — a sort of mythic place I’d grown up hearing about, which actually was called Mudbound — from my grandmother’s point of view'.
The book won 'The Bellwether Prize for Fiction', which consists of a $25,000 cash payment to the author of the winning manuscript, and guaranteed publication by a major publisher. Its intent is to advocate serious literary fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships. The prize is awarded to a previously unpublished novel representing excellence in this genre.