Mudbound

Mudbound

by Hillary Jordan
[cover name=mudbound]

Welcome to the Mississippi Delta in the Jim Crow South. Henry McAllan has always wanted to own a farm, but his wife Laura grew up in the city and has trouble living without electricity and running water. Hap and Florence Jackson, two black sharecroppers, live and work on the McAllan’s farm. The story is set just after the end of World War II, and soon Henry’s brother Jamie and Hap and Florence’s son Ronsel return from their service in Europe.

Jamie was a pilot and war hero, but after the war, he started drinking hard. His friend Ronsel served with General Patton and got used to being treated like a human being in Europe. Both have trouble adjusting to the more restrictive, racist Southern society. Ronsel, of course, runs into trouble when he refuses to be a second-class citizen, while Jamie angers the locals by supporting his black friend.

This is not a happy story. Racism is one of the central themes, and the Jacksons don’t have easy lives. The local doctor “only treated colored people on certain days of the week and it wasn’t always the same.” When Florence has to stay with the McAllan family, she is told that she has to “sleep out in the barn with the rest of the animals.” Mudbound is well-written, though, as long as you don’t mind the sense of doom.

You can read some of it online at Scribd.

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