Every human struggle has a spiritual shadow. In the world of Jesmyn Ward’s second novel, “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” it’s personified.

Leonie and Jojo, a young woman and her 13 year old son, see dead people. Leonie sees her brother Given, who died during a racially-charged hunting “accident” in rural Mississippi. Jojo sees and talks with Richie, a kid about his age, who died decades before. Richie catches a ride on a claustrophobic family road trip that forms the structure of this book; Given appears to Leonie when she is high.

Leonie’s mother/Jojo’s grandmother, Mam is the one who should be able to see beyond death. Her healing powers and spiritual knowledge suffuse the family lore. But interacting with the restless deceased seems to be an unpredictable power. Both Leonie and Jojo wrestle with it and grow.

Physical body, Mississippi landscape and spiritual struggle co-exist in this book.

I love the cameo appearance—as if they were phantoms themselves—of two characters from Ward’s first, phenomonal book, Salvage the Bones. Set in Bois, Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina, Salvage the Bones seems God-given to me: a piece of art destined to come into existence. I became so deeply invested in Skeetah and Esch while reading Salvage the Bones, it was a thrill for me to see them stroll through page 197 of “Sing, Unburied, Sing” leading a black dog—this is significant.  

“Sing, Unburied, Sing” is not as perfect or powerful as “Salvage the Bones,” but few books are or ever will be. In her second book, though, Jesmyn Ward opens my eyes to Mississippi, to the generational trauma of slavery, and about letting one’s spirit sing.