First Draft Book Club: Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
7PM WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29
First Draft Book Club returns to First Draft Book Bar inside Changing Hands Phoenix!
Join USA Today Books Editor Barbara VanDenburgh for a discussion about November's club pick, Let Us Descend by two-time National Book Award winner and MacArthur Fellow Jesmyn Ward, a haunting masterpiece about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.
It's free to attend. RSVP below.
Join our First Draft Book Club Facebook group here.
ABOUT THE BOOK
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow—comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.
“‘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.
WHAT IS FIRST DRAFT BOOK CLUB?
First Draft Book Club is the official book club of First Draft Book Bar – the coffee, beer, and wine bar inside Changing Hands Phoenix. Every month, USA Today Books Reporter Barbara VanDenburgh picks a hot new book and hosts a guided book club discussion.
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