MADreads

Pappy was a bad, bad man

October 2nd, 2008 Katharine - Sequoya

First time novelist Hillary Jordan’s novel Mudbound caught the attention of Barbara Kingsolver and won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Fiction, an honor that she founded to award “literature of social change.” It caught my attention in the positive reviews it got in BookPages and in an NPR story.

Mudbound is set in 1940’s Mississippi as a young black soldier is returning home to his sharecropping family only to find new owners have taken over the land, the McAllans. Henry McAllan’s little brother Jaime has also returned from flying bombers over Germany and both men are carrying alot of post-war baggage. Pappy is Henry’s cantankerous father who is forced to live with Henry and his wife Laura as they begin their marriage on the desolate farm. The story unfolds chapter by chapter each told in a different character’s voice (except for Pappy, but his heinous actions speak volumes) and Jordan does an excellent job weaving their stories together.

My favorite types of novels are ones that open and close with the same scene, bringing the reader full circle in a complex and engaging story. Mudbound is just this type with Pappy’s impromptu funeral starting and ending the book. The in-between is a tremendous story about love, race, war, and family. This heartbreaking and emotional tale would be ideal for a book group discussion or as an companion to a history lesson about pre-civil rights tensions in the South.

Jordan’s writing was pure southern storytelling and it made everyday examples of social change come to life. Pappy was the only character in the book not evolving with society around him, unless you count him changing into worm food. Put this one on next year’s book group reading lists now and find out why Pappy was such a bad guy.

Entry Filed under: Literary Fiction