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 ...

The general view of the book was that it was well-written and a very true depiction of a poor family living through a massive disaster. The main character Esch was very sympathetic and real, and we felt that Ward did a terrific job showing the depth of the relationships of her family and friends in the Pit. The book was a tough read though, and everyone was at least a bit disturbed by the depictions of violence and the raw amount of suffering in the story. We made an interesting contrast between this book and A Little Life, recognizing that A Little Life was much more sadistic to its characters but we all found Salvage the Bones more disturbing. David V in particular did not like the book -- he found the Medea references too heavy and thought the writing was clunky. We agreed that the author missed sometimes, but the majority felt the great passages outweighed the overwrought ones. The violence against dogs was also a sticking point for some of us. Some NUBClubbers thought those sections were unreadable, while others found them disturbing as well but thought they were critical to the book's view of the intersection of love, violence, and function. Overall, the group remained mixed, but no one could disagree that that last chapter was an amazing account of the aftermath of Katrina and landed solidly in the power of Greek mythology Ward aimed at.