This is a great read. The story is set just after WW2 in rural Mississippi. It takes you into the lives of a black family whose son has returned from the war at the same time the white family's brother returns. I don't want to give the story away....once you start this book you won't be able to put it down.

WINNER OF THE BELLWETHER PRIZE FOR FICTION
Mudbound by Hillary Jordan (Book Review)
This debut novel Mudbound has rightly won many literary awards and praises from literary critics. It is published by Windmill and its ISBN is 0099524686. The book begins with a grave scene and each character tells in their own voice the story of how they arrived at the pitiless burial of their father. The farm Mudbound is situated in Delta in the US in 1946 at the end of World War 11 and deals with family dynamics and racism. Two heroes Jamie and Ronsel return from war with their own scars but face their own battles on homeland. The two brothers in arms form a friendship based on mutual respect for fighting for their country. But in a small and bigoted rural land the black man Ronsel is delegated to a boy and is segregated from the whites. The two ignore orders to stop mixing and there are terrible consequences. Both families' lives are changed forever. "Sometimes it is necessary to do wrong, sometimes it is the only way to make things right."There are sad and disturbing accounts of violence and racism but it needs to be said and said loudly to learn from past mistakes, we all are equal. It is a sad recall of a time past of racialism and war and how it can have devastating and lasting harm on people. It is a sad but beautiful portrayal of many characters points of view white and black, male and female. Each in their own voice tell their own tale. I highly recommend this tale. Reviewed by Annette Dunlea author of Always and Forever and The Honey Trap.
Book Trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S3AFkuOrNk

Mudbound, by Hillary Jordon, is a book that stands out among others. It is her first novel and one that has placed this author on my watch list for her future works. The story revolves around Laura and her husband Henry and his brother Jamie. Set in Mississippi during the 1940s, the boundaries that existed between black and white residents is explored through a story that captures the reader from the very first page. Each chapter is told from the perspective of the various main characters allowing a greater depth to the story. Once I was a few chapters into this book, I couldn’t put it down.

A story of 1940s Mississippi. A tale of two families; one black, the other white. Henry McAllen moves from the city with his wife, two young daughters and his cantankerous, racist father to land he has just bought. On that land are four sharecroppers but the story focuses on one family, that of Hap Jackson his wife and three young children. Henry's younger brother is off fighting in WWII as is Hap's oldest son who are both around the same age. When the war ends both of these young men eventually return war weary and world-wise to the South of the Forties, a viciously, racist time and place.

Each chapter is narrated by one of the six main characters and the whole story unfolds slowly through the eyes of each one. The contrasting eyes of Hap, an enterprising black man trying to get his family their own land, and Henry, who considers himself forward thinking where 'coloreds' are concerned yet who knows the limits. The contrasting eyes of Florence, black sharecropper wife who is midwife to the local black folks and Laura, a city bred white woman who becomes beaten down by the farm land. And finally through the contrasting eyes of Jamie, returning white air force hero who is so mentally disturbed by the war he has become an alcoholic and cares not what anyone thinks of him outside the family, and Ronsell the returning hero from the first fighting black platoon, directly under Patton's orders, and a deeply loving and caring man but in his returning home of Mississippi he is just a n*gger.

I really hate to gush in my reviews but all I want to say about this book is "Wow! Wow! Wow!". Beautiful, brilliant, sad, and disheartening yet ending on a bittersweet slight glimpse of hope. I felt for each and every one of the six main characters. It takes a lot of skill to write a book through the eyes of 6 different people but Jordan pulls it off with flowing grace. Beautiful and heartrending. Read this book!

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan is a stunning debut novel.

I was absolutely blown away by this book. The cover art captured me first. The stark contrast of the ramshackle house against the bountiful cotton field intrigued me. I wanted to know the story of that house and it's inhabitants.

Laura has resigned herself to life as a spinster when she meets Henry McAllan in 1939. She eventually accepts his proposal of marriage and they settle down to urban life in Memphis, Tennessee. Family upheaval and Henry's desire to own a farm lands them, their two children and Henry's sly, cruel father in rural Mississippi on a cotton farm. There is no electricity, no running water and when the river rises, they are cut off from the town. There are tenant farmers on the land as well, black and white. Racial tensions and long held prejudices run deep in the Mississippi Delta.

Mudbound opens with Henry and his brother Jamie burying their father on the farm. Jordan's descriptions paint tangible pictures. " The soil was so wet from all the rain it was digging into raw meat". Laura's description of the farm also paints a vivid picture. "When it rained, as it often did, the yard turned into a thick gumbo, with the house floating in it like a soggy cracker"

From that opening scene, we relive how Henry and Jamie came to be burying their father. Each character has a voice in the telling of the story. Henry, Jamie, Laura, Florence and Hap - the black tenant farmers on the McAllan farm and Ronsel - their son. Ronsel and Jamie have both just returned home from the war. Both men have been changed by their experiences and form an unlikely friendship. In the Jim Crow south, this is unacceptable and drives the story to it's inevitable conclusion.

I could not put this book down. The characters,their lives, emotions and upheaval are so richly painted. The historical facts of the deep south in the late 1940's are woven into this stunning debut novel. Jordan's writing captured and held me until the last page. I cannot wait to read her next novel.

Mudbound evoked strong emotions in this reader. The past is still happening.

Jordan won the 2006 Bellwether Prize awarded to literature of social change. This founder of this prize is Barbara Kingsolver.