29. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
This story takes place in rural coastal Mississippi, covering the 10 days leading up to Hurricane Katrina, the day of the hurricane and the day after. The story is told from the perspective of 14 year old Esch, who at the beginning of the novel finds herself pregnant and desperately trying to capture the attention of the baby’s father who cares nothing about her except for sex. Esch is the sole daughter in a family of four children being raised by a single father. Their mother died giving birth to Junior the youngest son. She also has two older brothers Randall and Skeetah.
This book is essentially the calm before the storm. You see this family going about its lives but with the sense that something larger is brewing but without really understanding what it is. Unfortunately most of the characters seemed only caricatures. I never really got a good sense of who Randall, Junior, or the father were. They seemed to be side notes each with their own quirk. Even Esch, who is the narrator of the story seems to be not very well drawn. Mostly what you know about her is that she is pregnant and has been sleeping around because it seemed easier than not doing it when boys started going after her.
Skeetah is really the heart of the story, though the relationship he has with his pit bull China and her puppies that serves as the real meat of the story can be hard to take. It is very obvious that he loves this dog more than anything else in the world and would sacrifice himself for her and yet this is juxtaposed with his use of her to make money and status through breeding her and entering her into dog fights. It fits with who the character is even though it seems counterintuitive to think that someone who puts his dog in such horrible situations could love her so much.
The part about Katrina was actually the weakest part of the story, and I think that it actually would have been better for the author to end it just as the hurricane was arriving. The descriptions of what happen during the hurricane to this family made little sense to me, and the aftermath just seemed rather anti-climactic to what you knew was building the entire time.
I give it a 6 out of 10.