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Since I moved to the South fourteen years ago, I’ve been captivated by the vibrant Southern literary traditions here. And one of those shining stars is the incredible author, Jesmyn Ward. Every single book of hers stands out in my mind, but my favorite is Salvage the Bones.

From the first paragraphs, Salvage the Bones transports you to a different world, where a junk yard holds a ramshackle house dusted with red clay. With each description, Wards rips open the story, revealing every uncomfortable nuance of reality. You see and feel what she wants you to see and feel. And in this book, it’s all about Esch.

Near a bayou on the coast of Mississippi, Esch lives with her motherless family—three brothers and a father who constantly escapes his life through alcohol. They live in the house her father built for her mother, a place her family calls “The Pit.” Esch escapes The Pit through the books she reads, specifically identifying with Medea in the book Mythology. Like Medea’s passion for Jason, Esch loves Manny, a boy who, to her, shines like the golden sun. Unable to bear confessing her love, she lets him have whatever he wants, the act embodying her silent wish for him to love her. 

Over the twelve-days of the novel, Esch’s family listens to reports of a hurricane named Katrina, which heads toward the coast. At first, only Esch’s father believes the reports of the severity of the coming storm and begins staggering around, preparing for the hurricane. Esch faces each day with unflinching courage, quietly choosing to go on and take care of her family. But her brother, Skeetah, is more focused on caring for his white Pit Bull, China, and her new puppies.

While the story is often harrowing, the prose winds its way through your mind, making the violent descriptions seem simultaneously harsh and beautiful. Ward writes with the confidence of her protagonist, imbuing Esch with such complexity and emotional depth. You can’t help but know you are reading a master at her craft.

Salvage the Bones is the second novel in Ward’s trilogy of loosely connected stories set in Bois Sauvage, a fictional town in the Mississippi Delta. Ward’s debut, Where the Line Bleeds, introduces us to the town, focusing on two twin boys who’ve just graduated from high school. Ward’s third novel—Sing, Unburied, Sing—closes out the series, giving us a more fantastical take on the lives of the residents of Bois Sauvage. All three of them are excellent and they can be read in any order.