Una Mannion’s debut novel is A Crooked Tree.
At the Guardian she tagged ten books in which "the dramatic force of the children portrayed is not their weakness but their strength, their ability to resist and sometimes to forgive." One title on the list:
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn WardRead about another entry on the list.
Thirteen-year-old Jojo, three-year-old sister Kayla and addicted mother Leonie take a road trip to collect their father from prison. Ward eschews the epic and redemptive possibilities we associate with road narratives as Leonie takes a diversion to pick upa package of crystal meth and Jojo tends to a feverish Kayla. Watching Jojo hold Kayla, how she “sticks to him, sure as a burr”, Leonie says: “I stand there watching my children comfort each other. My hands itch wanting to do something. I could reach out and touch them, but I don’t.”
Sing, Unburied Sing is among Sahar Mustafah's seven novels about grieving a family member and LitHub's ten books we'll be reading in ten years.
--Marshal Zeringue
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