20 Dec / New Kids on the Audio Block | Book ’Em Now: Sing, Unburied, Sing’s Audacious Trio [in Booklist]
Book ’Em Now: Sing, Unburied, Sing’s Audacious Trio
Imagine choosing three first-time narrators to voice the next novel from a National Book Award winner. Takes faith! Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones won the 2011 NBA for fiction; six years later, she won her second NBA for Sing, Unburied, Sing, in which she returned to Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, for an epic road trip meant to reunite a splintered family. Drug-addicted Leonie leaves her children – just-turned-13 Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla – to live with her African American parents. With her fellow addict friend in tow, Leonie returns for the kids to go collect their white father from prison. Their journey lays bare racial, societal, and familial divides.
The newbie trio here – all Hollywood actors – makes audacious debuts. Rutina Wesley (True Blood) as Leonie achingly inhabits the limbo between desperate and determined. Kelvin Harrison Jr. (It Comes at Night) as Jojo is old before his time as Kayla’s protector. Chris Chalk (Gotham) as Richie – who slips into the car on the return ride – is caught between brash and lost. Individually, each is superb, making future solo narration a must. Savvy producers should get Wesley, Harrison, and Chalk aurally committed right now.
Published: “All Things Audio: New Kids on the Audio Block,” “Book ’Em Now: Sing, Unburied, Sing’s Audacious Trio,” Booklist Online, December 19, 2018
Readers: Adult
Published: 2018