Winner of the National Book Award
**
Jesmyn Ward, two-time National Book Award winner and author of Sing,
Unburied, Sing, delivers a gritty but tender novel about 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.
