Book Review - Mudbound

An excellent book. Grittier than The Help but similar in scope, Mudbound describes the way a Southern woman's eyes are opened after her husband moves the family  from their comfortable and sheltered existence to the post World War II Mississippi Delta. There, the rules concerning race, marriage, and honoring your father and mother are challenged when soldiers, one, the son of a racist white farmer (who might possibly be the most unsympathetic character ever written), and the other, the black son of a sharecropper, return from the war and are no longer willing to abide by them.

I can't remember the last time I read a novel that used foreshadowing as skillfully as Hillary Jordan uses it in her book. The narration and chronology both jump around from chapter to chapter, so readers are aware of outcomes and feelings before understanding any whys or hows, but it all works as a powerful engine, driving the conflict to its inevitable crux.

Powerful, but not pleasant.