Stevie‘s review of Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
African American Historical Fiction published by Scribner 24 Oct 23
I’ve read two of Jesmyn Ward’s contemporary novels and enjoyed both the magical realism of her lyrical prose and the glimpses into other, very different, lives that her works give us. This book takes us back in time to the Southern states of America in the years before the Civil War, where we follow the life of an enslaved woman, Annis. Annis is the granddaughter of a proud warrior woman, whom she knows only through the stories her mother tells her as they practice fighting in the way of their ancestors. Her father is the white enslaver on whose property Annis was born and where she labours, as our story opens.
Annis dreams of other worlds: those in the stories of her grandmother and those in the classical literature read by her white half-sisters and their tutor, including Dante’s Inferno, from which the novel’s title is taken. As Annis reaches adulthood, she is separated from first her mother, then from their home, and eventually from the woman she has fallen in love with, during a harrowing journey to New Orleans and a new enslaver.
On the long walk, Annis encounters a spirit that takes her grandmother’s name, and she is able to take strength from the images the spirit shares with her. Her new enslaver is no less cruel than the previous one, though in different ways, and Annis has to endure starvation and disease before she finally finds a way out, along with a potential new, free life.
I loved this book, difficult as it was at times to read about the hardships and dangers that Annis endures. It all gave an excellent insight into parts of history that need to be taught more in schools and also in the wider media.
Grade: A
Summary:
“‘Let us descend,’ the poet now began, ‘and enter this blind world.’” —Inferno, Dante Alighieri
Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this miracle of a novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land—the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward’s most magnificent novel yet, a masterwork for the ages.
Read an excerpt.
