Mudbound [Paperback]

Hillary Jordan (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill; First Edition edition (2008)
• ISBN-10: 1554681928
• ISBN-13: 978-1554681921
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (235 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,137,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hillary Jordan grew up in Texas and Oklahoma. She received her BA in English and Political Science from Wellesley College and spent fifteen years working as an advertising copywriter before starting to write fiction. She got her MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University.

Her first novel, MUDBOUND, was published by Algonquin Books in March 2008. It won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Fiction, founded by Barbara Kingsolver and awarded biennially to an unpublished debut novel that addresses issues of social justice, and a 2009 Alex Award from the American Library Association. It was the 2008 NAIBA (New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Assoc.) Fiction Book of the Year and one of IndieNext's top ten reading group suggestions. It was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, a Borders Original Voices selection, a Book Sense pick, and one of twelve New Voices of 2008 chosen by Waterstone's UK. PASTE Magazine named it one of the Top Ten Debut Novels of the Decade.

Hillary's second novel, WHEN SHE WOKE, is forthcoming on October 4, 2011.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

180 of 186 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars dark but memorable tale shows great potential, March 16, 2008

By 

John C. Wiegard "Virginia Librarian" (Chester, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mudbound (Hardcover)

Hillary Jordan appears to be the real deal, judging from the amazing skill she displays in constructing this novel. She is able to tell a dark and troubling tale in the voices of several of the characters and make it all hang together. Actually, it more than just hangs together, it fits together almost seamlessly. As other reviewers have noted, this story focuses on the Mississippi Delta in the year 1946/47, when returning veterans of WWII knew the world was changing, but their home community did not. The realities of the racism of the time and place are explored thoroughly, but not in a melodramatic or pompous way. This novel received the Bellwether prize, which is the largest USA prize given to unpublished manuscripts and the only one that specifically promotes literature of social change. Barbara Kingsolver reviewed it in the strongest positive terms- no surprise, because it is as good as her work. Like others, I am highly interested in the next thing that Hillary Jordan will write.

101 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mississippi Delta Farm Life In The 1940's, June 27, 2008

By 

Susan K. Schoonover "Sue Yingling" (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mudbound (Hardcover)

In her novel MUDBOUND Hillary Jordan does a good job bringing the language and attitudes of both black and white rural Mississippians living in the years surrounding World War II to life. The story is told by six "voices". Laura's voice is perhaps the one we hear from most frequently. She is a "city" (Memphis) born woman who marries when in her early 30's and had given up on marriage and motherhood. Her husband is Henry, a basically good but also inconsiderate man and it is his dreams of farm life that bring his wife and daughters to live on a remote cotton farm with him and his hateful father. Another voice belongs to Jamie, Henry's much younger charming brother, a returning war hero with a serious drinking problem and some other unresolved issues. Hap is a middle aged black tenant farmer and an almost saintly part time preacher and his voice helps us understand the hopes, desires and choices of many black Southern Americans of that time. His wife Florence is a sharply observant voice who sees much as "granny midwife" to the poorer people in the area and in her other role as housekeeper for Laura and her family. Florence and Hap's son Ronsel is the last voice. Ronsel returns from service in World War II much changed after seeing the greater acceptance of blacks in Europe and other parts of the United States and finds difficulty in accepting the subservient plight of black folks in the Jim Crow Delta.

The beginning and ending of the novel are the weakest parts. The beginning chapter in which we meet Jamie and Henry digging a grave should be compelling but somehow isn't and I had to force myself to continue reading and was fortunately soon rewarded as Laura begins to tell her story. The ending of the book also has problems and is not nearly as strong as the author seemed to have intended. In fact the overall quality of writing in the novel weakens after the tragic climax. There are also some very predictable plot elements that keep the story from seeming as original as it could be. Yet this is a very readable worthy book with some important messages about racism and humanity as well as some real insight in to life in the Delta sixty some years ago.

68 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A startlingly beautiful and sharp-edged debut...essential reading!, March 3, 2008

By 

Jennifer Epstein (Brooklyn NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mudbound (Hardcover)

Hillary Jordan's first novel is a luminous, lovely and at times achingly painful depiction of America at a time of its greatest glory and shame. Set at the end of World War II, it follows the vastly different homecomings of two returning war heroes--one black, one white--to the Jim Crow south. Jordan uses deftly lyrical writing (judiciously salted with both humor and pathos) and a breathlessly brave approach to tell her story: a diverse chorus of different characters (black and white, male and female) weave their voices together in observations of race and rural farmlife in the 40's. The result is a delicately-choreographed, operatic tragedy that unrolls with graceful inevitability, culminating in a climactic scene that will reverberate for this reader (and writer) for years to come.

Here is a true new talent; a writer with the stylistic grace and social conscience of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor and the dramatic flair of Pat Conroy and Jodi Picoult. Mudbound will leave you stunned, impressed, painfully touched---and (like me!) eagerly anticipating its author's next book.