“Seeing him broke the cocoon of my rib cage, and my heart unfurled to fly.”īut this book’s most striking feature is not Esch’s confusing yet love-filled world, but Skeetah’s undying passion for his beloved dog, China, feelings that are mutual. She’s the kind of heroine that strikes a chord in you, one that you’re going to root for even when the book is over, one that the world needs right about now.įrom forceful depictions of reality, Ward dives into poetic metaphor, describing everything, from Oak trees and magnolias and the wood, to Esch’s undying love for the father of her child, Manny. She breathes.” – Salvage the bonesĮsch is an unlikely heroine, unlike the teenage girl stereotypes we are faced with. In Esch’s world, there’s parallels with China, because China is a mother and a fighter and that’s what Esch wants to be. But this graphic setting is important, because it forms the backbone of Esch’s world. She uses extremely powerful prose and sets graphic scenes so graphic that you will shudder in disgust and get carried away in the deluge of it. Jesmyn Ward writes like she’s not afraid, like she wants to rip open wounds. But for the Baptiste children, it’s all going to be okay, because all that matters in the end is their unbreakable relationship with each other. Esch is also pregnant and the father of the child won’t look Esch in the eye, won’t acknowledge Esch.Īs the motherless family that lives among abandoned cars and chickens prepares for the disaster that’s about to hit them, there are other matters at hand that need to be dealt with first: an alcoholic father, a basketball match that could give Randall a much longed for scholarship, illegal pit bull matches, and a not so secret teenage pregnancy. Esch adores her brother Skeetah, who in turn, only has eyes for his prized pit bull, China - so much so that he often sleeps in the dog shed.

Esch and her brother, Randall are default parents to their youngest brother Junior, who doesn’t know what it’s like to have a mother.

Salvage The Bones is also a story of love in the ugliest of places, filial affection amidst gut-wrenching poverty and strength where there is no strength to find.Įsch is 15. After having taking nearly 2000 lives and causing hundreds of billions of dollars in material damage, Katrina displaced almost one million people in the gulf coast region. The costliest tropical cyclone on record, the aftermath of the storm was nothing short of catastrophic. Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the United States of America in August 2005.

Salvage The Bones is a visceral, true to reality novel of a poor family of six in the eye of the storm – Hurricane Katrina.

Salvage the bones review