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Reviews for Salvage the Bones:

A September 2011 Indie Next pick 

O Magazine Fall “Must Read”

Vogue.com “Fall’s Blockbuster Novels”

More.com “Fall’s Hottest Novels”

Huffington Post “Best Fall Books

“Lyrical … Ward’s writing is startling in its graphic clarity … talent like this shouts from every page.”—Boston Globe

“The novel’s hugeness of heart and fierceness of family grip and hold on like Skeetah’s pit bull.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

“Salvage the Bones is a novel that will make readers wince at times and tear up at others. Ward gives voice to the forgotten families of the Gulf Coast through lyrical imagery and the type of uncensored authenticity that can only be delivered through the eyes of a child … it is a true testament to the realities of rural poverty. Once the storm hits, you’ll find yourself tearing through the book and finishing it with a better sense of Katrina’s impact.” —BUST

“Mississippi native Jesmyn Ward’s second novel is a pitch-perfect account of struggle and community in the rural South…. The fictional world Ward creates sings with the speech of uneducated but wise people without stepping into caricature dialect. Though the characters in Salvage the Bones face down Hurricane Katrina, the story isn’t really about the storm. It’s about people facing challenges, and how they band together to overcome adversity.”—BookPage

“The narrator's voice sparks with beauty as it urges the reader through this moving story set in the shadow of Katrina.”—Huffington Post

“Few works of fiction can capture the heart-wrenching emotions attached to a natural disaster, and fewer still can do it in a way that seems palpable and fresh. Salvage the Bones, the latest by rising star Jesmyn Ward, accomplishes this feat, and then some … From beginning to end, Jesmyn flirts with perfection in this stunning second novel, and the reader is rewarded for it.”—Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA)

“A fiery, almost fable-like novel.”—Whole Livin

“Salvage the Bones is an engaging novel that, on the surface, seems like a sorrowful tale of a broken household, yet holds beneath it the cherished story of family and loyalty.”—The Root.com

“This book is impossibly beautiful.”—OxfordAmerican.org

“Salvage the Bones…is uncompromising and frank, showing both beauty and violence, poverty and resilience, in a powerful and poetic voice.”
—Sun Herald (Biloxi, MS)

“Salvage the Bones is honest about the realities of rural poverty.”—Jackson Free Press

“[A] poetic second novel … [main character] Esch traces in the minutiae of every moment of every scene of her life the thin lines between passion and violence, love and hate, life and death … her voice … [gives] its cast of small lives a huge resonance.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Working through the 12 days building up to and encompassing the hurricane’s arrival, Ward (Where the Line Bleeds) uses fearless, toughly lyrical language to convey this family’s close-knit tenderness, the sheer bloody-minded difficulty of rural African American life, and what it’s like when those hurricane winds sledge-hammer you and the water rises faster than you can stand up. It’s an eye-opening heartbreaker that ends in hope. VERDICT: Highly recommended; you owe it to yourself to read this book.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“With spare and eloquent language, Ward creates remarkably memorable characters…. This is a beautiful yet disturbing book that should also find its way into the hands of upper division high school teachers who will find it a worthy addition to reading lists and literature discussions.”—SchoolLibraryJournal.com

“Salvage the Bones will be an important book to read. It’s short but intense all the way through.  For anyone who enjoys a good story of human drama, this book will leave you speechless.”—ChicksDigBooks.com

“A rich novel … wonderfully written.”—BookDwarf.com

“Salvage the Bones is suffused with truly beautiful writing.”—KGB Bar Lit Magazine

“This small masterpiece reveals the lives of poor southern blacks who live sealed off from white America, from its technology and prosperity, from any promise of any dream … Ward has a magical ability to create the feel of these lives through the rich, physical texture of the place they inhabit…. Ward does not attempt to explain or romanticize these facts of…existence, only to sear them into our imaginations through her powerful writing.”—ArtsCriticATL.com

“This second novel delivers on and expands the promise of Where the Line Bleeds; Jesmyn Ward has claimed her place both as a contemporary witness of life in the rural south and as a descendant of its great originals. This memorable clan deals with the threat and then the actuality of Hurricane Katrina in much the way that Faulkner’s folk once dealt with fire and flood; the voice here is lyric, unsparing, and fierce. You won’t forget this book.”—Nicholas Delbanco, author of Sherbrookes and Lastingness: The Art of Old Age

“With Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward has written the best sort of novel—a beautiful, important book that’s both unflinching and tender, heartbreaking and triumphant. A lyrical and riveting testament to the strength of the human spirit, as well as the power of family and community. Ward’s paragraphs are like songs, lifting us even as the authenticity of this world and these characters keeps the ground in clear sight. This is an extraordinary book by an extraordinary writer.”—Skip Horack, author of The Southern Cross and The Eden Hunter

“Jesmyn Ward writes like an angel with a knife to your throat, compelling you with exquisite language and a clear voice to go where she goes, to see what she sees. Salvage the Bones is at turns unsettling and uplifting – raw and honest as a dog fight, lyrical as a poem. It cuts through the clichés about poverty to arrive at a place of shocking recognition, that at the end of the day love and loyalty to family are all that sustain us.”—Ken Wells, author of Meely LaBauve

“A fiercely beautiful portrait of lives caught quite literally in the maelstrom that was Hurricane Katrina. Salvage the Bones more than lives up to the promise so evident in Jesmyn Ward’s much-praised first novel, Where the Line Bleeds. It surpasses that promise, and does so in one deft stride. Deeply felt and bristling with breathtaking imagery, Salvage the Bones will hold its readers utterly riveted to the very last page.”
—Travis Holland, author of The Archivist’s Story

“Salvage the Bones is an unforgettable novel—a rendering of a time and place that seems chiseled by an artist out of marble. In it, we recognize the world we’ve heard about, but seeing it through the eyes of these characters and this author, it is revealed to be so much more—richer, stranger, more desperate and beautiful—than we could have possibly imagined. From its lyrical yet visceral first scene, this novel had me, and I hardly dared to put it down for fear a spell might be broken, but it never was or will be, such are the gifts of this writer.”
—Laura Kasischke, author of In a Perfect World