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    Where the Line Bleeds
    Where the Line Bleeds
    Where the Line Bleeds
    Audiobook10 hours

    Where the Line Bleeds

    Written by Jesmyn Ward

    Narrated by Myra Lucretia Taylor

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A stunning debut novel from Jesmyn Ward, Where the Line Bleeds is a rich tale of twins raised by their grandmother in a stiflingly poor rural community on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Upon graduating from high school, growing tensions between brothers Joshua and Christophe test their loyalties-and a violent altercation forever changes their lives.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateApr 2, 2010
    ISBN9781440790584
    Where the Line Bleeds
    Author

    Jesmyn Ward

    JESMYN WARD received her MFA from the University of Michigan and is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University. She is the author of the novels Where the Line Bleeds and Salvage the Bones, which won the 2011 National Book Award, and Sing, Unburied, Sing, which won the 2017 National Book Award. She is also the editor of the anthology The Fire This Time and the author of the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. From 2008 to 2010, Ward had a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. She was the John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi for the 2010–2011 academic year. In 2016, the American Academy of Arts and Letters selected Ward for the Strauss Living Award. She lives in Mississippi.

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    Reviews for Where the Line Bleeds

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    • 3/5
      This is the author's first novel and it was republished in 2018. While I liked this book, I much preferred her later book "Sing, Unburied, Sing". The story is set in rural Bois Sauvage, Mississippi during the summer of the high school graduation of twins Joshua and Christophe, who were raised by their diabetic and blind grandmother. Their feckless parents, Cille and Samuel, had only sporadic contact with the boys. Joshua manages to find a physically demanding job working on the docks. Christophe is embarrassed by his failure to find a job and contribute to the family, and he becomes a small time drug dealer. There wasn't much plot in this book and the story was too meandering for me. The writing was very good and the brothers and their grandmother were realistic and likable characters. I also liked the close relationship between the brothers that survived the challenges set before them. However, the story was too slow and uneventful for me to love it. There was an awful lot of hair braiding going on. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
    • 4/5
      Jesmyn Ward is a national treasure.
    • 4/5
      The Line Bleeds is the third book in the Bois Sauvage series and tells the coming-of-age story of twin brothers Joshua and Christophe, raised by their grandmother, Ma-Mee, in the impoverished south of Louisiana. Just out of high school, they struggle to come to terms with an absent mother and a drug-using father and quickly learn the world offers few chances to get ahead. Jesmyn Ward's way of painting each scene with fragrant smells—not all pleasant, frank inner-dialog, and colorful tiny details of the world she's creating always makes me feel like I'm right in the midst of the action. Good and gritty.
    • 4/5
      A small town on the Mississippi Gulf coast, twins Christophe and Joshua are set to graduate high school. Raised by their grandmother after their mother left and their father succumbed to the lure of drugs, they want only to get jobs so they can help make her life easier. Joshua gets a back breaking job on the docks, but Christophe gets no call backs. In an effort to make money he turns to illegal activities. This causes a big division between the close relationship the twins had, and a hardship on their grandmother who sees how unhappy they are, wishing only that they were young as again so she could hug them and make it all better.This is Wards first book, and though not as gritty as those that come after, it does perfectly depict the poverty of those in these forgotten communities. Where drugs are often the answer, where jobs are scarce and most of those of only minimum wage. It is also a novel full of love, as this is a family that wants to stick together, but is torn apart by the lack of employment and the loss of pride of Christophe as he does things he never thought he would do. It will take a horrible incident to bring this family to senses, with the hope of better things to come. The novel does end with hope, hope and love. I would not consider this a YA book, it is to realistic and at times violent for that to be the designated readership. It shows her wonderful talent at tackling difficult subjects and make us care for the people involved. The descriptions of their lives are rendered authentically, and we are drawn inside this small family as they face the many hardships and yes, joys too. ARC from edelweiss.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Jesmyn Ward writes beautifully. There is poetry in her style. Sometimes, I just wanted to stop and read out loud to hear the words. The plot is simple. Twin brothers living in tiny-town poverty graduate from high school. One gets a job, the other doesn't and turns to small time drug dealing. But this book is not about the plot, it is about the characters, whom I quickly grew to care about. I was propelled not by wondering what would happen next, but by my interest in their lives, and my hope that things would work out for them. Though I don't have any first hand experience with the culture and environment where the book is set, it always felt fully realistic and convincing to me.