Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

My favorite book of late was Mudbound by Hillary Jordan.  I love how, like The Help, the story is told from each character's point of view except the father-in-law. It is the story of two families, one black and one white, in a small southern town after World War II.  Both families have young men that served overseas and both come back to a town that hasn't changed much, although they have.  In the meantime, the young mother who was used to living in cities must learn to live on the farm:  cleaning house, killing chickens, raising kids, taking care of her bigotted father-in-law.  It's a story ripe with conflict, love, and hatred.   The story line interweaves the lives of these characters and climaxes when the white WWII vet must decide the fate of his black friend who has been captured by the Ku Klux Klan.  "What's it gonna be?" said Turpin.  "His eyes, his tongue, his hands or his balls?  Choose, nigger lover." It's just such a heartbreaking tragedy, but everything about the novel invites interesting discussion: the themes, setting, Biblical references, etc. 

A couple of my favorite lines from the book follow.
Jamie:  "The soil was so wet from all the rain it was like digging into raw meat."
Laura:  "When I think of the farm, I think of mud.  Limning my husband's fingernails and encrusting the children's knees and hair.  Sucking at my feet like a greedy newborn on the breast . . . I dreamed in brown."
Laura:  "I fell in love with my brother-in-law the way you fall asleep in the car when someone you trust is driving--gradually, by imperceptible degrees, letting the motion lull your eyes closed."

There are also many references to cleaving--both Biblical and secular, that I found interesting.
Laura:  "There's a lot of talk in the Bible about cleaving.  Men and women cleaving unto God.  Husbands cleaving to wives. Bones cleaving to skin.  Cleaving, we are to understand is a good thing.  The righteous cleave; the wicked do not."
Laura:  "It would be six years into my marriage before I remembered that cleave has a second meaning, which is 'to divide with a blow, as with an axe'."
Laura:  "I never saw the axe blow coming."

Seriously, how often do we go through our lives and never see the axe blow?  We just aren't prepared for the onslaught that changes the path of our lives forever.  Looking back on my life, I see the stumps where the axe had fallen forcing me to grow in a different direction. I can also look back and identify those times where I cleaved to someone or something like bones to skin. 

I read Mudbound and Kathryn Stockett's The Help in succession, and it was one of those times I longed desperately for a book club.  It would be such a great discussion!