In four years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young men dear to her -- lost to drugs, accidents, and suicide. Their deaths were unconnected, on the surface of things -- but their lives were connected by identity and place, and as Jesmyn' dealt with these losses, one after another, she came to a realization at once oblivious and staggering. Jesmy grew up in rural Mississippi. As the sole member of her family to leave home, she writes about the place she came from with the objectivity distance provides, but with the intimacy of utter familiarity, with the love that made her ultimately return.
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