And so at the time, in fifth grade, I was dealing with a lot of bullying in the public schools I went to - I went to two public schools that year and I was being bullied. So when the lawyer was home my mother would have conversations with him about her kids, of course. The husband in the family was a lawyer he worked for a firm in New Orleans. My mother worked for a white family that lived in one of the mansions on the beach. On how she ended up attending private school I was reckless and I did a lot of drugs and I drank a lot and I did stupid things because a part of me despaired at that idea and did think, 'What's the point?'

When I write about what was happening at the time, in the book, I can certainly see how I was suffering from that mindset too, especially during those years. in creative writing from the University of Michigan. The book also explains how Ward managed to get a good education: At her mother's urging and thanks to a generous scholarship, she attended private elementary and high schools, and eventually received an M.F.A. Ward's new book, Men We Reaped, also tells her story of growing up in DeLisle, Miss., where she escaped death at least a couple times herself - first when she was born prematurely with serious health problems, and then when she was mauled by a pit bull her father had purchased to use in dog fights. Over the next four years, her friend Demond was murdered after agreeing to testify against the alleged shooter in a drug-related case another friend committed suicide a third died of a heart attack at 23, probably brought on by cocaine and other drugs and her cousin was killed when his car collided with a train on the tracks. Her younger brother, Joshua, was 19 when he was killed by a drunken driver who smashed into his car. The cause of each death was different, but she sees them all as connected to being poor and black in the rural South: How?Īfter winning a National Book Award for her novel Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward has written a memoir that's framed by the deaths of five young men in her life.

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Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward