_______________''A brutal, moving memoir … Anyone who emerges from America’s black working-class youth with words as fine as Ward’s deserves a hearing'' - Guardian''Raw, beautiful and dangerous'' - New York Times Book Review''Lavishly endowed with literary craft and hard-earned wisdom'' - Time_______________The beautiful, haunting memoir from Jesmyn Ward, the first woman to win the National Book Award twice''And then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped'' - Harriet TubmanJesmyn Ward’s acclaimed memoir shines a light on the community she comes from in the small town of DeLisle, Mississippi, a place of quiet beauty and fierce attachment. Here, in the space of four years, she lost five young black men dear to her, including her beloved brother – to accidents, murder and suicide. Their deaths were seemingly unconnected, yet their lives had been connected by identity and place. As Jesmyn dealt with these losses, she came to a staggering truth: the fates of these young men were predetermined by who they were and where they were from, because racism and economic struggle breed a certain kind of bad luck.The agonising reality brought Jesmyn to write, at last, their true stories and her own._______________''Acute and often beautiful'' - Financial Times''Haunting'' - Laurie Penny, New Statesman Books of the Year''Elegiac, rage-filled, and uncommonly brave'' - Vogue''A brilliant book about beauty and death'' - Los Angeles Times''Essential'' - San Francisco Chronicle''Burns with brilliance'' - Harper''s Bazaar''Unvarnished and penetrating'' - Elle