Where the Line Bleeds (2008) by Jesmyn Ward

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Where the Line Bleeds (2008)

by Jesmyn Ward

DeLisle, Mississippi

Mississippi: 4/18

   Two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward would have to be at the very top of any serious list of American authors of literary fiction in the 21st century.  Her presence amidst the detritus of YA and chick-lit titles stands out like a beacon from a proverbial light house of literary fiction.  I checked out the Audiobook because I was wondering if I could seriously tell the difference between an Author with such widely regarded literary merit and the run of the mill titles, I've been suffering through for the past couple years.  Where the Line Bleeds was her first novel, and then she dropped Salvage the Bones four years later- that book won the National Book Award.  She won again in 2017 with Sing, Unburied, Sing, which I read during a period where I was reading all the National Book Award finalists.  It's a good book, obviously, but it didn't spur me to go back and read her other titles.

   I could tell the difference between Ward's prose and the run of the mill stuff on a couple of levels.  First, she was able to turn an otherwise prosaic landscape (the unheralded Mississippi coastline) with real grandeur.  She did this in a couple different ways.  First, she was a close observer of the physical landscape- her descriptions of crack houses and swamp parties sparkle with life.  Second, her ability to depict all five senses marks her out from the pack.   Great writers of literary fiction imbue the reader with a feeling that there is depth beneath the surface of the human activity being depicted, but they also provide a many-splendored surface, pairing stylistic flourishes with economy.   She does all these things in Where the Line Bleeds, which is sure to be my top title from Mississippi and a likely top five for the entire chapter.