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Salvage the Bones: A Novel Paperback – April 24, 2012

by Jesmyn Ward (Author)

4.3 5,744 ratings

Book 1 of 3: Bois Sauvage

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Winner of the National Book Award
An Atlantic Great American Novel of the Last 100 Years

"A taut, wily novel, smartly plotted and voluptuously written . . . Jesmyn Ward makes beautiful music, plays deftly with her reader’s expectations." ―Parul Sehgal, New York Times

The National Book Award-winning novel from the author of Let Us Descend and Men We Reaped―a gritty but tender story of family and poverty in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.

A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting.

As the twelve days that make up the novel's framework yield to their dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family--motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce--pulls itself up to face another day. A big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds, and a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, Salvage the Bones is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.

Book 1 of 3

Bois Sauvage
Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bloomsbury USA
Publication date

April 24, 2012
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.7 x 8.2 inches
ISBN-10

1608196267
ISBN-13

978-1608196265
Lexile measure

890L
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Get to know this book

What's it about?
A gritty but tender story of family and poverty in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.
Amazon editors say...
Jesmyn Ward's beautiful novel explores loss and memory, family structures, race, and poverty.
Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
Popular highlight
Seeing him broke the cocoon of my rib cage, and my heart unfurled to fly.
1,037 Kindle readers highlighted this
Popular highlight
I will not let him see until none of us have any choices about what can be seen, what can be avoided, what is blind, and what will turn us to stone.
1,026 Kindle readers highlighted this
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The house is a drying animal skeleton, everything inside that was evidence of living salvaged over the years.
783 Kindle readers highlighted this

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A taut, wily novel, smartly plotted and voluptuously written. It feels fresh and urgent, but it's an ancient, archetypal tale . . . Jesmyn Ward makes beautiful music, plays deftly with her reader's expectations.” ―Parul Sehgal, New York Times Book Review

“Ward tells the story with a tense patience, marking day after day; when the storm comes, overturning everything, it feels like a fatal relief. At least the waiting's over. Salvage the Bones expands our understanding of Katrina's devastation, beyond the pictures of choked rooftops in New Orleans and toward the washed-out, feral landscapes elsewhere along the coast.” ―New Yorker

“There's something of Faulkner to Ward's grand diction, which rolls between teenspeak . . . and the larger, incantatory rhythms of myth. She's fearless about her passion coming out purple, and for the most part the intensity of her story carries it off.” ―The Paris Review

“I've just read [Salvage the Bones], and it'll be a long time before its magic wears off . . . [a] fiercely poetic novel . . . What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico . . . Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy . . . A palpable sense of desire and sorrow animates every page here . . . Salvage the Bones has the aura of a classic about it.” ―Ron Charles, the Washington Post

“Strikingly beautiful, taut, relentless and, by its end, indelible . . . Ward stares down the truth . . . It's astonishingly brave.” ―Joan Frank, San Francisco Chronicle

“Salvage the Bones is an intense book, with powerful, direct prose that dips into poetic metaphor . . . the story is told with such immediacy and openness . . . That close-knit familial relationship is vivid and compelling, drawn with complexities and detail.” ―Los Angeles Times

“The novel's hugeness of heart and fierceness of family grip and hold on like Skeetah's pit bull."” ―Ellen Feldman, O, the Oprah Magazine

“A fresh new voice in American literature, Ward unflinchingly describes a world full of despair but not devoid of hope.” ―PW Starred review for Where the Line Bleeds

“Her prodigious talent and fearless portrayal of a world too often overlooked make her novel a powerful choice.” ―Essence for Where the Line Bleeds

“A richly textured tale...like the best fiction, it creates its own world.” ―Susan Larson, N.O. Times-Picayune for Where the Line Bleeds

“A remarkable first novel...a lyrical, clear-eyed portrait of a rural South and an African-American reality that are rarely depicted.” ―Boston Globe for Where the Line Bleeds

About the Author

Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University. She is the author of the novels Where the Line Bleedsand Salvage the Bones, which won the 2011 National Book Award, and Sing, Unburied, Sing, which won the 2017 National Book Award. She is also the editor of the anthology The Fire This Timeand the author of the memoir Men We Reaped,which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. From 2008-2010, Ward had a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. She was the John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi for the 2010-2011 academic year. In 2016, the American Academy of Arts and Letters selected Ward for the Strauss Living Award. She lives in Mississippi.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury USA; Reprint edition (April 24, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1608196267
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1608196265
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 890L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #12,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #530 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #643 in Black & African American Literature (Books)
- #1,456 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.3 5,744 ratings

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Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, and the Strauss Living Prize. She is the winner of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently an associate professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.

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4.3 out of 5

5,744 global ratings

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Readergurl

Amazing Book...

Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2013

Verified Purchase

It takes a lot nowadays for me to rate any Fiction book 5 stars. I read way more non-fiction, and usually only read highly recommended fiction, or some that's given to me.

There are plenty of other reviews here that tell you how it's not a "happy" book (why that matters i dont know), so i wont go on about that part. I dont base my reading choices on whether they have a happy fantasy story.

This story is very real. The writing is really good. I have several points that i use to rate a book: the story itself, the actual writing style, the 'entertainment' value, the emotions it brings out - laughter, sadness, etc., and if it's very memorable - either by being very different than anything i've ever read, or by something else about it being very different.

The only point out of all of those that i wouldnt give a 5 would be the writing style/prose - which i'd give a 4. It's very good, but not "amazing" to me like some authors are.

The author brought me into the characters - where i could feel what they were feeling, and i understood why they did the 'bad' things they did - totally. I felt the way they lived, the area, the poverty... As the story progressed, i stayed up one night for HOURS wanting to know what happened - until the sun rose actually.

As the finale was coming - which i had no idea would be the way it was - i was literally gripping the book with both hands and holding it up to my face. I realized this and laughed to myself since i hadnt even noticed. Then - i sobbed thru the last 20 pgs - i havent cried from ANY fiction for a long time. Yes, i get into books and really let them take me away, but this book has a special kind of writing and a special story that i never expected to effect me sooo much.

The author THEN does something so amazing at the very end - when i couldnt believe it could get any better. I KNEW what i wanted to happen - and i kept thinking to myself, "no, it wont - because it will just seem to corny if it does." (Even tho i wanted it so much.) She made it happen in a special way, without making it corny but while bringing me the hope and good feeling i needed after all the sobbing. (I dont want to give anything away just in case you dont know the story.)

This book scores an A+. If you love good, moving, American fiction you will love this.

14 people found this helpful

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Francophile in Michigan

Brava, Ms. Ward

Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2015

Verified Purchase

I read this novel, along with nine others, for a college literature course. Of the ten, this was the only book to elicit a strong emotional reaction from me. There were moments when I hung my head in frustration, threw up my hands in respect (God bless Ward’s writing style), and wiped my face of tears and snot after crying my eyes out. An incredibly moving and poignant novel.
The novel opens with its narrator Esch, fourteen years old and pregnant. She often follows her brothers around, and is constantly surrounded by men as well as the gruesome society of dog-fighting. Esch’s predominant male surrounding is, perhaps, the main influence that encourages her to sleep with her brother’s friends, and to submissively pine for the one boy, Manny, who unforgivingly mistreats her. Though Esch’s character was impeccably frustrating, and borderline stereotypical and archetypal, her faults lie with a motherless young girl, who wants to be wanted and loved. Both frustrating and annoying, this characterization was, at times, unlikable, yet that is exactly what made Esch so human.
I applaud Ward’s lyrical writing style, as well her ability to write such gruesome and honest depictions that made me literally cringe when reading. Ward is able to effortlessly incorporate poetic language into her novel that, at times, made me set the book in both awe and envy, knowing I would never be able to produce such a product. I did find there to be a disconnect between the poetic language and the colloquial diction. That’s to say, I found it a bit unbelievable that Esch would speak so poorly to her family and friends, yet express herself so eloquently in her narration. Regardless, I found the poetic language to be successful and moving.
I knew before reading the book that it was centered on Hurricane Katrina. However, I was surprised that the novel was centered on the build-up to the hurricane. Katrina itself is more or less twenty pages. The chapter pertaining to the hurricane, as well as the aftermath of the hurricane, were the sections of the novel that I found most captivating. Living through the hurricane with Esch and her family was difficult to read, which is perhaps why Ward chose to limit its description. That said, I wish I had more of Katrina and its aftermath. I waited for the hurricane for 200 pages, and it seemed to end as soon as it started. Though I was unsatisfied by the ending, I appreciated that the novel was a work that was not so much about Katrina as it was about survival and family.
I was captivated by Ward’s poetic writing and honest characters. I will definitely be on the lookout for her other works, as well as an avid recommender of this novel.

5 people found this helpful

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lina serino

Condizioni pessime

Reviewed in Italy on May 23, 2023

Verified Purchase

Il libro è arrivato in condizioni pietose insieme ad un altro che avevo acquistato. Stracciati entrambi e bucati. Sembrava ci avessero conficcato delle forbici dentro.
Due stelle e non una perché almeno dopo aver chiesto il cambio sono arrivati in condizioni normali.

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Cliente de Amazon

Una agradable sorpresa

Reviewed in Mexico on January 21, 2019

Verified Purchase

Su capacidad descriptiva es muy buena, te sientes como si estuvieras ahì. Sensible pero fuerte. Una historia que me atrapò de inmediato y me conmoviò profundamente.

One person found this helpful

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W1Girl

Required reading

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 13, 2017

Verified Purchase

Painfully beautiful language. I was absorbed immediately and spent hours in someone else's shoes. Soaking up their reality. Remembering to see through someone else's eyes.

3 people found this helpful

JC C.

Really Bad

Reviewed in Spain on March 8, 2018

Verified Purchase

Having read half the book I am still bored. Nothing happens, I don’t like the style and I can’t relate to any of the characters who are basically a bunch of degenerates.

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HonestFeedbacker

Good portrayal of family bonding

Reviewed in India on July 6, 2017

Verified Purchase

The book is not so interesting in the beginning. It took me about 5 chapters to get connected to the story. The end is really good. The way the writer has narrated the emotions and cooperation between the family and their care, the imagery of Katrina, the circumstances, was intriguing.

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