Now for some unknown reason every time I think of this book I want to say Mudblood which I know is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Because this story has nothing to do with Harry Potter not really.
Mudbound is Hilary Jordan's first novel and it's another free early review book I received as a Librarything member. Pretty much once I started this book I couldn't put it down. I got to, for a time, be in the shoes of the main characters in the story and get a sense of what life was like for a few on a muddy farm in the south after WW II. I found a story about love, the ravages of war and racism. Mudbound is train wreck of a story showing what it was really like. How color got in the way of connection and how color and hate were hand in hand.
This kind of book has me thinking, should we write books about the past that shows such a limited view of what we, as humankind, can be? I think sharing the truth even in fiction is shocking. I'm reminded what we are capable of at our worst and that I would not want to be a part of world like that. At the same time I do not know the fear of being hated for the color of my skin. I could guess (definitely not know) that this book would be very hard to read and possibly discouraging as a person of color. This is where I was left wanting and expecting a different story. I expected seed of hope for a different world and there a were few but I mostly found was a stark account of the brutality of racism. Especially in light that so many men of color had died for our country in WW II. It was disgrace.
It has me wondering have things changed? I sure hope so. If not what do we do about it?
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