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‘Let Us Descend’ — Jesmyn Ward
A Counter Arts Book Club review essay
Full disclosure, from the books of hers I’ve read before (‘Sing, Unburied, Sing’ is amazing), I am predisposed to think Jesmyn Ward’s writing is sublime. This, and the fact that, in the U.S.A February is designated as Black History Month, influenced my choice of ‘Let Us Descend’ as February’s title for The Counter Arts Group Book Club.
“This intensely wrought tone poem stalks an enslaved girl’s tortuous passage through the human-made and natural perils of the antebellum Deep South.”
- LET US DESCEND | Kirkus Reviews
Jesmyn Ward has a talent for writing about the Black perspective on the history of slavery in the US. This shines through her novels in such a way that her words sing — lyrical, poetic, magical, they form a song in your mind as you read them. She tells stories beautifully, about ugly things happening to fictional people; uses magical realism in the shaping, but ultimately we have to realise that what she conveys in her novels is nothing short of the historical truth.
