Jesmyn Ward is a great master. Sing, Unburied, Sing is a powerful, moving, shimmering, haunted chandelier of a novel. Each part gleams. Each part reflects and refracts the lights held in its golden arms. Splinters of color spin at the end of invisible threads.

If you like beautiful sentences, read this book. Every page is a treasure box of jewelry words.

Alright. The plot. A woman takes her kids to pick up her boyfriend, their father, from prison. She sees the ghost of her brother, murdered by racists. Her son can talk to animals, and sees the ghost of a boy her father befriended in prison. She is one narrator, her son is another, and the third is the ghost the son can see. Also, her mother, a practitioner of folk herbal magic, is dying of cancer.

A southern gothic ghost story drenched in dazzling language. There is never a false note in this novel. The mood is consistent, the tone perfect every time. The character’s voices are real and unaffected.

I want to particularly praise how the fantastical and realist elements meld. The ghosts feel just as realistic as the cars, gas stations and oil rigs. Man! Jesmyn Ward must have visited an oil rig, or interviewed somebody who worked on one. Because that part was extremely convincing.

I have no criticisms to make of this book. As far as I can tell, this is the product of a great artist at the height of her powers. I want to study it so I can learn how to do what she does.

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