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In 1946, during the height of Jim Crow South, the Mississippi Delta was a community still beholden to the values of the Antebellum South: racial discrimination and violence were the norm. It is in this fraught landscape that Hillary Jordan set her debut novel, Mudbound, which explores the lives of two families living off the same land in the Delta. Refined Memphis society woman Laura McAllan moves from her family home with her husband, Henry, and their two daughters to a dilapidated farm house in rural Mississippi to pursue Henry’s dream of working the land. Laura is reluctant to move, both because of the shabby accommodations, but also because her family will be joined by Henry’s cantankerous elderly father. The McAllans share their property with the Jackson’s, a black family working their land. Hap Jackson is a hardworking farmer, while his wife, Florence, is a strong-willed midwife who helps around the McAllan house, providing Laura with welcome company.
The lives of the two families intertwine when the Henry’s ne’er do well brother, Jamie, returns from Europe after serving a tour of duty in World War II. Jamie is clearly suffering from PTSD: he develops a dependency on alcohol to dull the edge of his frequent combat nightmares. Jamie is able to hide his inner darkness well, and he charms Laura into a state of adoration: she sees him as an exciting alternative to her plain and unemotional husband. Jamie soon finds a companion in Ronsel, the Jackson’s eldest son, who also returns home from combat at the front lines of battle in the European theater of the war. Ronsel is a great pride to his parents, he is intelligent, cultured, and self-possessed. But like Jamie, Ronsel struggles with the demons that followed him home from Europe, and the two become beleaguered drinking companions who dream of running away from the farm.
The novel is in many ways about being trapped: Jamie and Ronsel are trapped by their memory of the war, Laura is trapped in a life on the farm that she finds unbearable, and the entire Jackson family is trapped in a deeply racist society where they are considered second-class citizens. All of the characters are trapped by the land, bound by a sea of dirt and mud—Laura “dreamed in brown” when they first moved to the farm—which necessitates constant plowing and planting to yield any sort of profit.
Mudbound was inspired by Jordan’s mother’s recollections of her time living on an isolated farm with running water, and Laura stands in for Jordan’s grandmother in the novel. In an interview with NPR, Jordan explains, “I started out writing what I thought was going to be a short story in the voice of Laura…and as the story grew, I just found myself wanting to hear from other people. As the story got larger, as it embraced these other themes, these larger themes about war and about Jim Crow, I wanted to hear from those people.” While the novel has may narrators, it does feel grounded most soundly in Laura’s perspective, which seems appropriate given Jordan’s relationship to her.
The novel is an exquisitely wrought portrayal of the pain and suffering experienced by two families, and the characters who come to do irreparable harm to one another. Jordan inhabits the perspectives of multiple characters with ease, and a great deal of sensitivity toward their individual inner life. An impressive debut that feels at once weighty and propulsive.
Further Reading: Dee Rees’ 2017 film adaptation of the novel (same title) is excellent, and available on Netflix. Read The New York Times‘ review of it here.