Mudbound by Hillary Jordan (Algonquin, hardcover, $22.95), the winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, is a very readable first novel set in the Mississippi Delta at the end of World War II. We first follow city-born Laura McAllan as she struggles to deal with the trials of keeping house and raising children on her husband’s newly purchased farm. Then two war heroes return to work the land – her white brother-in-law, Jamie, and Ronsel, the eldest son of her husband’s black tenant farmers — but are given very different homecomings. Each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view, but their stories tie together seamlessly, giving a comprehensive view of racial tensions in the Jim Crow South. I recommend Mudbound for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and William Faulkner.
