Review of LET US DESCEND by Jesmyn Ward (New Release)

 3 Stars

This is a slave narrative with strong elements of magic realism.

Arese, known as Annis by most people, is born on a rice plantation in North Carolina, the daughter of an enslaved black woman and the white plantation owner.  She is eventually sold at a slave market in New Orleans to the owner of a Louisiana sugarcane plantation.  Separated from her mother, Arese tries to find comfort and strength in the memories of her mother and the stories she was told about Mama Aza, her African warrior grandmother.  She also opens herself up to the spirit world and connects with a wind spirit who oversaw both her grandmother and her mother.  This spirit, who calls herself Aza after Arese’s grandmother, is fickle and not very helpful so Arese is uncertain about trusting her.  Arese comes to realize that the spirit world teems with spirits but they often seem more manipulative than nurturing.  

I am not fond of magic realism and its use in this novel certainly affected my enjoyment.  As the novel progresses, the spirits become more prominent.  Unfortunately, they left me confused because I was never certain of their role.  Arese does mention that Aza’s “coming, strange and new, made me forget the rope and my wounds,” but it is Arese’s mother who teaches her the most important lesson:   “’In this world, you your own weapon.’”  On the march to New Orleans, she reminds herself, “Didn’t Mama say I was my own weapon?  That I was always enough to figure a way out?”  In the end, she repeats, “I am my own weapon” and even alludes to this in her last conversation with Aza.  So do the spirits help Arese to find her inner strength and help her realize that she must trust herself and her abilities?

The novel’s pace is slow and the reader probably won’t learn anything new about the horrors of slavery.  There is not a strong storyline; it could easily be summed up in one sentence.  As a result, I had difficulty connecting with the story.  And the more time Arese spent focusing on the spirits, the more quickly I found my interest waning. 

What stands out about the book is its language which can only be described as lyrical and beautiful.  In the first chapter, Arese describes her mother as “a woman who hides a tender heart:  a woman who tells me stories in a leaf-rustling whisper, a woman who burns like a sulfur lantern as she leads me through the world’s darkness.”  On the long walk to the slave market, Arese describes her loneliness:  “My longing for my mother spreads over me in a great fishing net and tightens, so whole I can feel it from my head to my middle to my feet.”  Poetic language is even used to describe pain:  “The men and women around me struggle upright, backs curled to the downpour like armadillos.  My body is one great bruise.  I groan, roll over on my stomach and retch.  I scuttle as well as I can away from the sick, but the rope tenses, so I crouch on all fours like the others, trying to inch out of the muddy ground.  The sky bellows over us.  I bow my head to the deluge, to the pain ricocheting through me.”

For me, however, this lyrical prose is incongruous.  Describing the brutality of slavery in such beautiful words seems inappropriate.  I also want more than just gorgeous diction:  more plot and more nuanced character development.  And less magical realism. 

Note:  I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.