What do you think?
Rate this book
On Witness and Respair
The collected creative nonfiction of a singular American writer, Jesmyn Ward, including widely shared classics, three never-before-published speeches, and an introductory essay.
Respair (noun, obsolete), fresh hope after despair.
From the two-time National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Jesmyn Ward, this collection of essays documents more than a decade of work in the life of a singular writer often lauded as “the heir apparent to Toni Morrison” (LitHub). Beginning with her upbringing in a multigenerational household in rural Mississippi, the cradle of both her youth and her gift for storytelling, Ward brings her keen wisdom and hauntingly lyrical prose to a range of topics, following in her grandmother Dorothy’s footsteps when she promises always to “Tell it straight. Tell it all.”
True to her word, in these pages Ward contemplates the writers and novels of her youth and adulthood—the transformative power of discovering Octavia Butler as a twenty-something, the mirror that Richard Wright’s novels held up to her own childhood, and of course, her lifelong love for Toni Morrison. Ward ruminates on her approach to both fiction and life, reflecting on the power of the novel, how to raise a Black son in an era of rising divisiveness and cruelty, as well as her own personal tragedies—including the titular essay of the collection, which tells the story of her partner’s sudden death on the eve of the COVID-19 epidemic. Every bit as piercing and moving as her fiction, On Witness and Respair is a testament to Ward’s powers as “one of America’s finest living writers” (San Francisco Chronicle) and is a monument to hope, beauty, and personal and collective resilience.
Respair (noun, obsolete), fresh hope after despair.
From the two-time National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Jesmyn Ward, this collection of essays documents more than a decade of work in the life of a singular writer often lauded as “the heir apparent to Toni Morrison” (LitHub). Beginning with her upbringing in a multigenerational household in rural Mississippi, the cradle of both her youth and her gift for storytelling, Ward brings her keen wisdom and hauntingly lyrical prose to a range of topics, following in her grandmother Dorothy’s footsteps when she promises always to “Tell it straight. Tell it all.”
True to her word, in these pages Ward contemplates the writers and novels of her youth and adulthood—the transformative power of discovering Octavia Butler as a twenty-something, the mirror that Richard Wright’s novels held up to her own childhood, and of course, her lifelong love for Toni Morrison. Ward ruminates on her approach to both fiction and life, reflecting on the power of the novel, how to raise a Black son in an era of rising divisiveness and cruelty, as well as her own personal tragedies—including the titular essay of the collection, which tells the story of her partner’s sudden death on the eve of the COVID-19 epidemic. Every bit as piercing and moving as her fiction, On Witness and Respair is a testament to Ward’s powers as “one of America’s finest living writers” (San Francisco Chronicle) and is a monument to hope, beauty, and personal and collective resilience.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published May 19, 2026
About the author
Jesmyn Ward
28 books9,770 followersJesmyn Ward is the author of Where the Line Bleeds, Salvage the Bones, and Men We Reaped. She is a former Stegner Fellow (Stanford University) and Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. She is an associate professor of Creative Writing at Tulane University.
Her work has appeared in BOMB, A Public Space and The Oxford American.
Her work has appeared in BOMB, A Public Space and The Oxford American.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 133 reviews
May 22, 2026
respair, n.
Perhaps: fresh hope, or recovery from despair.
This word is now obsolete.
—Oxford English Dictionary
(thanks to the publisher for the arc / review to come)
Perhaps: fresh hope, or recovery from despair.
This word is now obsolete.
—Oxford English Dictionary
(thanks to the publisher for the arc / review to come)
May 30, 2026
Jesmyn Ward is just such a great writer. I love her nonfiction and feel she doesn't get enough credit for that. The personal essays are really what standout here and the profiles and literary reviews are less engaging, but are good.
January 29, 2026
Respair is my new favorite word.
February 5, 2026
Jesmyn Ward! She is who I had in mind when I coined the word Prosey and created a Prosey Posse! So, even in her nonfiction her prose defies description. Prosey. I am filled with joy reading Jesmyn Ward even when she is writing of difficulties. Grief. Despair. Poverty. Loss. Longing.
When you produce a book of previously published essays, you usually get a lot of overlap, due to the collection being put together with pieces written over a number of years. But one thing that is crystal clear in this collection is how important reading was for her. Her yearning to be seen in literature was ever propulsive.
One cannot underestimate how desperate one can feel to be not only seen but have their existence validated. The way Jesmyn writes about that desperation is downright impressive and inspiring.
Standout essays include, You Tell Your Story: You Survive (Eudora Welty Lecture, address at the National Press Club), A Conflicted, Imperfect Love (Introduction, As I lay Dying, Vintage International edition) and the titular essay, In Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by a Pandemic. A lovely collection of writing from Jesmyn Ward destined to further solidifying her status as a literary luminary!!! Thanks to Scribner and Edelweiss for an advanced DRC. Book drops May, 2026
When you produce a book of previously published essays, you usually get a lot of overlap, due to the collection being put together with pieces written over a number of years. But one thing that is crystal clear in this collection is how important reading was for her. Her yearning to be seen in literature was ever propulsive.
One cannot underestimate how desperate one can feel to be not only seen but have their existence validated. The way Jesmyn writes about that desperation is downright impressive and inspiring.
Standout essays include, You Tell Your Story: You Survive (Eudora Welty Lecture, address at the National Press Club), A Conflicted, Imperfect Love (Introduction, As I lay Dying, Vintage International edition) and the titular essay, In Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by a Pandemic. A lovely collection of writing from Jesmyn Ward destined to further solidifying her status as a literary luminary!!! Thanks to Scribner and Edelweiss for an advanced DRC. Book drops May, 2026
February 22, 2026
When reading Jesmyn Ward, words like beautiful and masterpiece lose their meaning.
She tells her stories with truth and simplicity, and with intricacy and generosity and elegance. The word “handcrafted” comes to mind. I picture her plucking words from above her brow and placing them intentionally, rearranging them on the page until they make a piece of art.
This book of essays collects her work from the last couple of decades across publications, some of which I had read, some I had not. Putting them all together in the same place allows us to more easily connect the heartstrings of so much of her work. That heartbeat is that her stories, her family’s stories, Black stories, deserve to be told straight. That the pain is not to be dimmed but the beauty shouldn’t be dimmed a bit either. She explores Black artists and storytellers who have done this, and she practices it herself. She accomplishes it so beautifully, not offering a cheap hope that ignores reality, but as the last essay indicates, an unquenchable hope that is based in the strength of the people she has known and witnessed. I am so grateful that her grandmother taught her to “Tell it straight, tell it all.” And I am so grateful that she continues to open up her heart and share her stories with us.
She tells her stories with truth and simplicity, and with intricacy and generosity and elegance. The word “handcrafted” comes to mind. I picture her plucking words from above her brow and placing them intentionally, rearranging them on the page until they make a piece of art.
This book of essays collects her work from the last couple of decades across publications, some of which I had read, some I had not. Putting them all together in the same place allows us to more easily connect the heartstrings of so much of her work. That heartbeat is that her stories, her family’s stories, Black stories, deserve to be told straight. That the pain is not to be dimmed but the beauty shouldn’t be dimmed a bit either. She explores Black artists and storytellers who have done this, and she practices it herself. She accomplishes it so beautifully, not offering a cheap hope that ignores reality, but as the last essay indicates, an unquenchable hope that is based in the strength of the people she has known and witnessed. I am so grateful that her grandmother taught her to “Tell it straight, tell it all.” And I am so grateful that she continues to open up her heart and share her stories with us.
May 26, 2026
No one does it like Ward
May 21, 2026
Beautiful, devastating new collection of old essays by Ward. My first by her as her fiction intimidates me a bit, but I should probably get over it and give it a go.
***Of interest to no one but me, but according to my reading spreadsheet, this is my first work published by Simon & Schuster (in the U.S.) this year. How can that be?? Weird.
***Of interest to no one but me, but according to my reading spreadsheet, this is my first work published by Simon & Schuster (in the U.S.) this year. How can that be?? Weird.
May 24, 2026
Jesmyn Ward’s On Witness and Respair pulls together her creative non-fiction writing from introductions to republished classical fiction, public speaking engagements, and magazines and news outlets from 2005 to the present.
She opens by introducing us to her kin—grandmother, mother, brother, and father—and she bears witness to growing up as a black girl in the Mississippi Gulf Coast who was poor. With no central heat or central air in their family-brimmed home, she read to hush the world, curious to find a sense of belonging.
Then she read and wrote stories to find herself and tell it true. And what’s true is this: Ward’s material poverty in rural Mississippi is slavery’s legacy, and more broadly, the myth of a savior lures the American consciousness to view Black Americans unvirtuously. For example, she records the death of her 19-year-old younger brother Joshua, who was killed in a car accident by a 40-year-old white man, who was subsequently charged with fleeing the scene of the crime and was released from prison after 3 years, about 2 years early. Joshua’s life and death continually appear throughout the essays. The myth America continues to believe is ingrained because of our history. In short, slavery is the antithesis of love.
Material poverty, however, does not inevitably intersect with imaginative poverty. Despite her heritage, her love for her home is clear. This is Ward’s greatest strength as a writer: clear-eyed and resilient, she generates fiction and recounts enslaved existences because Mississippi is a place worth living. She cries against the injustices following Katrina and fights against the dehumanization of Black Americans by creating characters with dignity in her historical fiction to rightly recognize her full inheritance. And her truthful storytelling necessarily leads to hope. But one must honestly tell of their Southern girlhood caste experiences in underfunded public-school classrooms with limited access to literature with representation before joy becomes more beautiful.
Ward’s openness induces empathy, and her expansive evenness in her art is formidable. I love reading about why a person of color loves their home in the sticky, swampy South. Sometimes, it’s right to return, to stay.
I rate On Witness and Respair 4.5 stars.
My thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for an ARC.
She opens by introducing us to her kin—grandmother, mother, brother, and father—and she bears witness to growing up as a black girl in the Mississippi Gulf Coast who was poor. With no central heat or central air in their family-brimmed home, she read to hush the world, curious to find a sense of belonging.
Then she read and wrote stories to find herself and tell it true. And what’s true is this: Ward’s material poverty in rural Mississippi is slavery’s legacy, and more broadly, the myth of a savior lures the American consciousness to view Black Americans unvirtuously. For example, she records the death of her 19-year-old younger brother Joshua, who was killed in a car accident by a 40-year-old white man, who was subsequently charged with fleeing the scene of the crime and was released from prison after 3 years, about 2 years early. Joshua’s life and death continually appear throughout the essays. The myth America continues to believe is ingrained because of our history. In short, slavery is the antithesis of love.
Material poverty, however, does not inevitably intersect with imaginative poverty. Despite her heritage, her love for her home is clear. This is Ward’s greatest strength as a writer: clear-eyed and resilient, she generates fiction and recounts enslaved existences because Mississippi is a place worth living. She cries against the injustices following Katrina and fights against the dehumanization of Black Americans by creating characters with dignity in her historical fiction to rightly recognize her full inheritance. And her truthful storytelling necessarily leads to hope. But one must honestly tell of their Southern girlhood caste experiences in underfunded public-school classrooms with limited access to literature with representation before joy becomes more beautiful.
Ward’s openness induces empathy, and her expansive evenness in her art is formidable. I love reading about why a person of color loves their home in the sticky, swampy South. Sometimes, it’s right to return, to stay.
I rate On Witness and Respair 4.5 stars.
My thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for an ARC.
June 5, 2026
A collection of beautifully written, soul-wrenching essays by one of America’s greatest contemporary writers.
June 10, 2026
4.5. Great, only took points off because some of the essays were noticeably weaker than others (and was just the foreward / introduction to another book).
June 17, 2026
I think I could listen to Jesmyn Ward talk forever. She’s up there with Ta-Nehisi Coates for think pieces so it’s extra heartening that he was mentioned in this! Such an important collection of her work and that last essay absolutely moved me to tears.
June 8, 2026
"This is how I began to understand Mississippi. This is how I began to understand America.
How could I not honor this truth in writing? How could I not translate this knowing into characters and stories and place? To witness someone in all their complexity and to detail that complexity is an act of love. It means a commitment to sitting and grounding oneself in the smallest heartbreaking, wondrous moments and carrying the memory of them forward."
" . . .because not only do I believe that witness is love, but I also believe that educating myself about and writing toward harder, more complicated truths helps me to be more mindful of the miracle of joy."
Jesmyn Ward's prose leaves me breathless.
'Respair' - the return of hope after a period of despair, to recover from hopelessness.
How could I not honor this truth in writing? How could I not translate this knowing into characters and stories and place? To witness someone in all their complexity and to detail that complexity is an act of love. It means a commitment to sitting and grounding oneself in the smallest heartbreaking, wondrous moments and carrying the memory of them forward."
" . . .because not only do I believe that witness is love, but I also believe that educating myself about and writing toward harder, more complicated truths helps me to be more mindful of the miracle of joy."
Jesmyn Ward's prose leaves me breathless.
'Respair' - the return of hope after a period of despair, to recover from hopelessness.
July 3, 2026
I want to start by saying that it is July 3, 2026. It is the administrative holiday of the Fourth of July, and the United States is turning 250 years old. I found it important to read about the American experience through someone who is more like me, and that someone is Jesmyn Ward.
As someone who cares deeply about the Black American literary tradition and Southern literary fiction, particularly the intersection of both, I know about Jesmyn Ward. The first time I found out about Jesmyn Ward was when I was a college student at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I was obsessed with Southern writers like William Faulkner and Black writers who "felt Southern" (in my opinion) like Toni Morrison. Suddenly, I was hearing about this author who was said to be a contemporary version of both. I followed her on Twitter because in the 2010s, that was where all of the Black writers, academics, activists, thinkers, and students were to talk about the issues of the day. She followed me back, and since then I have admired her work from afar, but it took me years to finally sit down and read it. I added On Witness and Respair to my TBR as soon as I found out about it.
The full review is on my blog. Please consider reading it.
As someone who cares deeply about the Black American literary tradition and Southern literary fiction, particularly the intersection of both, I know about Jesmyn Ward. The first time I found out about Jesmyn Ward was when I was a college student at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I was obsessed with Southern writers like William Faulkner and Black writers who "felt Southern" (in my opinion) like Toni Morrison. Suddenly, I was hearing about this author who was said to be a contemporary version of both. I followed her on Twitter because in the 2010s, that was where all of the Black writers, academics, activists, thinkers, and students were to talk about the issues of the day. She followed me back, and since then I have admired her work from afar, but it took me years to finally sit down and read it. I added On Witness and Respair to my TBR as soon as I found out about it.
The full review is on my blog. Please consider reading it.
July 2, 2026
I just finished this moving essay collection by one of our greatest living writers, and can't recommend it highly enough. Every one of them is worthy of your time.
June 11, 2026
The individual essays are powerful and important. As a collection, they kind of feel haphazardly thrown together and are incredibly repetitive. For example, basically every essay mentions “my brother was killed by a drunk driver.” A horrible tragedy, but when it is presented like this as if it’s new information in each chapter, it almost feels like you’re speaking with someone with dementia who keeps telling you the same story over and over as if you’ve never heard it. By the end of the book, I felt like I’d read the same sentence 20000000 times. Each individual essay is 5 stars but as a collection…not great
July 7, 2026
Jesmyn Ward is such a gorgeous writer in a way that makes me question why I'm not just constantly reading her. She is that good.
This collection is strong. The essays cover different topics, but there are some prevalent throughlines. Her brother's death is discussed often, and she made me tear up over it in her piece "No Mercy In Motion". There's a haunting quality to it, particularly when she reflects on how many of the young men at his funeral will soon be in coffins themselves. The importance of representation, particularly in literature, is also heavily discussed. There are a couple of beautiful essays about Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler that really speak to that. Finally, her love for her family and her complicated love for Mississippi are extraordinarily prevalent in this collection. It's moving to read her take on her home, which she recognizes has a horrific past and hopes can have a better future in spite of living through and hearing about some truly awful events in the not-too-distant past.
"Salvage the Bones" was the first Ward I read, and I loved it, but I really do feel that every time I read her nonfiction, that book takes on an even deeper meaning. I'm thinking specifically about an essay in this about living through Hurricane Katrina.
It probably goes without saying, but I'd definitely recommend this.
This collection is strong. The essays cover different topics, but there are some prevalent throughlines. Her brother's death is discussed often, and she made me tear up over it in her piece "No Mercy In Motion". There's a haunting quality to it, particularly when she reflects on how many of the young men at his funeral will soon be in coffins themselves. The importance of representation, particularly in literature, is also heavily discussed. There are a couple of beautiful essays about Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler that really speak to that. Finally, her love for her family and her complicated love for Mississippi are extraordinarily prevalent in this collection. It's moving to read her take on her home, which she recognizes has a horrific past and hopes can have a better future in spite of living through and hearing about some truly awful events in the not-too-distant past.
"Salvage the Bones" was the first Ward I read, and I loved it, but I really do feel that every time I read her nonfiction, that book takes on an even deeper meaning. I'm thinking specifically about an essay in this about living through Hurricane Katrina.
It probably goes without saying, but I'd definitely recommend this.
May 18, 2026
Everyone, everyone should read this book.
Jesmyn Ward is such a gifted storyteller. This collection of essays follows themes of family, racial injustice, growing up poor/Black in the south, grief, family, and identity. There are stories from her girlhood through adulthood, and they are all held in a net of such beautiful, raw observation that even I (a middle-class white woman from Oklahoma) felt it in my bones. These essays made me laugh, made me angry, made me feel shame and guilt for my complacency, and gave me appreciation for Black art I have been exposed to and will continue to seek out. Much like in our country’s history (and present), there is a lot of tragedy in this collection. Ward doesn’t shy away from it, though, and finds such beautiful hope in her experiences and roots. “This place that made me haunts me.” Beautiful prose, powerful message, and please just read it.
Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Jesmyn Ward is such a gifted storyteller. This collection of essays follows themes of family, racial injustice, growing up poor/Black in the south, grief, family, and identity. There are stories from her girlhood through adulthood, and they are all held in a net of such beautiful, raw observation that even I (a middle-class white woman from Oklahoma) felt it in my bones. These essays made me laugh, made me angry, made me feel shame and guilt for my complacency, and gave me appreciation for Black art I have been exposed to and will continue to seek out. Much like in our country’s history (and present), there is a lot of tragedy in this collection. Ward doesn’t shy away from it, though, and finds such beautiful hope in her experiences and roots. “This place that made me haunts me.” Beautiful prose, powerful message, and please just read it.
Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
May 31, 2026
Library ebook 📖: Wow. This collection of nonfiction essays, speeches, and profiles spans almost 30 years of Ward’s life and career. I was gutted by Ward’s pieces about her family riding out Hurricane Katrina in a field and losing her teenage brother in a car accident. This section really captured grief: “Losing him taught me one great lesson: even after that which you love dies, the love you have for it does not die. Grief is learning to live with that love.”
Her essays about the power of reading and her critical analysis of specific books and authors were probably my favorite pieces.
Some of what she’s written about Gatsby echoes what I say about the novel in class. I found myself highlighting so many lines, like “the very social class that embodied the dream Gatsby wanted for himself was predicated on exclusion. That Gatsby was doomed from the start. He’d been born on the outside; he would die on the outside.”
There are so many beautifully written sentences that it’s hard to pick an example. Here’s one about reading and writing hard stories: “To witness someone in all their complexity and to detail that complexity is an act of love”
Her essays about the power of reading and her critical analysis of specific books and authors were probably my favorite pieces.
Some of what she’s written about Gatsby echoes what I say about the novel in class. I found myself highlighting so many lines, like “the very social class that embodied the dream Gatsby wanted for himself was predicated on exclusion. That Gatsby was doomed from the start. He’d been born on the outside; he would die on the outside.”
There are so many beautifully written sentences that it’s hard to pick an example. Here’s one about reading and writing hard stories: “To witness someone in all their complexity and to detail that complexity is an act of love”
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I’ve been a fan of Jesmyn Ward ever since SALVAGE THE BONES, and I’ll read anything she writes. Her style is so lyrical and immersive, and that strength is fully on display in this essay collection.
These essays span personal grief, her upbringing in rural Mississippi, social justice, and the artists who have shaped her voice. The most powerful pieces are the deeply personal ones. they feel raw, intimate, and stayed with me long after I finished.
While a few essays lean more reflective and may feel slower at times, they still add depth to the collection as a whole. Ward’s insight and honesty make even the quieter moments meaningful.
Overall, this is a stunning, thoughtful collection. Ward writes with such clarity, emotion, and purpose. It's impossible not to be moved. This felt like getting closer to her as both a writer and a person. Truly a powerhouse. I’ll continue to read whatever she writes next.
These essays span personal grief, her upbringing in rural Mississippi, social justice, and the artists who have shaped her voice. The most powerful pieces are the deeply personal ones. they feel raw, intimate, and stayed with me long after I finished.
While a few essays lean more reflective and may feel slower at times, they still add depth to the collection as a whole. Ward’s insight and honesty make even the quieter moments meaningful.
Overall, this is a stunning, thoughtful collection. Ward writes with such clarity, emotion, and purpose. It's impossible not to be moved. This felt like getting closer to her as both a writer and a person. Truly a powerhouse. I’ll continue to read whatever she writes next.
June 2, 2026
“Tell it straight. Tell it all.” Ward’s grandmother, a terrific storyteller herself, exhorted her grandchild with those words, and they stuck. “On Witness and Respair” is a collection of essays, speeches, articles, and other nonfiction writing gathered beautifully into this collection.
Ward is willing to show her beating heart, to tell it straight: the abject poverty of her community, the unending racism, as well as the love and familial bond and joy, and the opposite of despair: respair.
I loved all of it and especially her pieces on becoming a writer, finding and nurturing her voice with clarity and vision.
Read this book, if for nothing else, for all the books you will want to read based on Ward’s reviews and analyses.
Ward is willing to show her beating heart, to tell it straight: the abject poverty of her community, the unending racism, as well as the love and familial bond and joy, and the opposite of despair: respair.
I loved all of it and especially her pieces on becoming a writer, finding and nurturing her voice with clarity and vision.
Read this book, if for nothing else, for all the books you will want to read based on Ward’s reviews and analyses.
June 7, 2026
Jesmyn Ward’s collection of essays is a powerful and profound ode to the power of storytelling, books, reading, legacy, Toni Morrison, grief, hope. Ward’s upbringing in rural Mississippi shaped her character, and she defied society’s narrow expectations for a young, poor, Black girl through her sheer brilliance, determination, and grit. Jesmyn Ward is one of my most favorite authors writing today; whether fiction or creative non-fiction, her writing is luminous, compelling, and deeply profound.
Ward narrates the audiobook; her voice is a salve, with its steadiness and grounded register. It’s rare that I want to take the time to read in print something I’ve listened to; On Witness and Respair is a rare exception.
Ward narrates the audiobook; her voice is a salve, with its steadiness and grounded register. It’s rare that I want to take the time to read in print something I’ve listened to; On Witness and Respair is a rare exception.
June 10, 2026
Jesmyn Ward has a seasoning salt soul and a writing style that displays a love for MS that is as thick as frozen oatmeal. This book was like a conversation with my TT on her porch with a cold coke in her hand. She takes on the issues of racism, grief, and corrupted systems with unparalleled creativity. Read this book and watch her show you witness and hope.
June 13, 2026
I listened to this collection of essays read by the author and I really was transfixed doing so. Ward is a gifted fiction writer, and her essays are compelling and thought provoking. Her experience growing up poor in Mississippi and losing her brother when he was 19 to a drunk driver who never was charged (the driver was white) among other events made these essays stick with me.
June 15, 2026
RESPAIR, an obsolete 16th century English word meaning “fresh hope” or “the return of hope after a period of despair” is a word all of us need to revive. An undercurrent of sadness transcends these essays that give us some insight into the author’s life story. She believes in truthful writing and in being a witness to the experiences of her family and ancestors, stating that “There is no need to soften the edges.” I agree and enjoyed reading each essay.
Read
June 26, 2026"Perhaps so many great writers are born of [Mississippi] because this place has endowed us with the particular temperament that demands we witness both the outrageous pain and the outrageous beauty of Mississippi. Perhaps we all share the same horror and awe at how the two are so closely intertwined here, how they seem to grow from the same root like a possum oak and a Spanish oak, one black-barked and prone to rot and breakage, the other feathered in small green ferns and a mosaic of moss."
May 31, 2026
I don't like rating memoirs or even these essays, which are personal and largely autobiographical. Something odd about assigning stars to someone's story.
22 essays have been collected here, most written between 2015-2020. The last 3 are especially good. Her remembrance of her grandmother Dorothy is great; her thoughts on Octavia Butler, Toni Morrison and Ta-Nehisi Coates stand out.
22 essays have been collected here, most written between 2015-2020. The last 3 are especially good. Her remembrance of her grandmother Dorothy is great; her thoughts on Octavia Butler, Toni Morrison and Ta-Nehisi Coates stand out.
June 7, 2026
A wonderfully moving and meaningful collection of essays by a truly gifted writer. I had read some of these when they were published but reading them one after another puts them in a different light.
July 3, 2026
My first real introduction to Jesmyn Ward’s writing, though I’d read a couple pieces before. I love her prose, love how she tells stories. I loved her Toni Morrison piece, so with her literary criticism gave more Playing in the Dark. Can’t wait to dig into her fiction.
June 24, 2026
Especially great for fans of Ward because it shares insight into her personal life which helps you understand the motivation for her fiction work. It's also a study in her evolution as a writer. What an amazing thing it must be to have her as a creative writing teacher at Tulane.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 133 reviews