This one is a tough but important read. Annis is born into slavery, with this story following her life as a young woman. The book has a highly spiritual aspect that I was not expecting, and at times I struggled to see what this was trying to portray.

This is primarily a book of self discovery, with Annis learning more about herself during a time where she is treated appallingly by others. The imagery is incredible strong in this book, supported by the fantasy/mystical elements included.

I don’t think I could say that I enjoyed this read, yet I am glad that I read it.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Let Us Descend
by Jesmyn Ward

This new to me author has a very strong, lyrical, exacting style. Her imagery is powerful, it conjures mysticism and her writing has an oral history vibe.

Although the content in this story is brutal and horrific, I felt unmoved, and I don't know why. From Roots to Uncle Tom's Cabin, 12 Years a Slave to The Water Dancer and The Underground Railroad, the stories of slavery never fail to viscerally effect me.

Maybe I have read too much in this genre? Actually I suspect that it's the very thing that sets this story apart from the others that will appeal to many, but just is not my cup of tea, namely the fantasy element. It turns a historically authentic story into make believe, gives it an Avengers fantastical aura and while that will be devoured by many, for me it reduces it's humanity.

Apart from that, I love that this has a female protagonist, and I love the message of taking ownership of oneself. This will appeal to a huge audience, especially young and female.

Publication date: 24th October 2024
Thank you to #netgalley and #bloomsburyuk for the eGalley

#bookreview #irishbookstagram #letusdescend
#jesmynward

Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take.

This is a tough story to read. Not because it’s poorly written, quite the opposite, but because of the suffering endured by the slaves at the hands of their masters. I didn’t care for the introduction of spirits, feel that it added nothing to the story. Putting that aside, I think this is a wonderfully written piece of fictional history.

I came to this book with very high expectations. American author Jesmyn Ward’s “Sing, Unburied, Sing” (2017) I rated five stars and it ended up in my Top 10 Of The Year when I caught up with it in 2021. Louise Kennedy, whose debut “Trespasses” (2022) is one of my favourite novels I’ve read in 2023 has described it as “The best book I’ve read in years”. The edition I got directly from the publishers begins with a message from Alexis Kirschbaum at Bloomsbury who makes great claims for it. “It is a text that feels almost sacred. The artistry is unparalleled. You will not read another book like this one.” I couldn’t wait to begin.
We’re taken back in time to the days of slavery. I only very recently read Yvonne Battle-Felton’s “Remembered" (2019) so comparisons for me are going to be inevitable and there is already an extraordinary book in this setting, “The Prophets” by Robert Jones Jnr (2021) who said so much of what is to say. This is a first-person narrative which begins with mother and daughter escaping their cabin at night to practise sparring with two buried sticks. Teaching her how to fight, Annis’ mother believes, may keep her alive.
The passing on of knowledge through the generations plays a vital part in this novel. Annis’ grandmother Aza is remembered only through her mother’s stories. A warrior woman, passed on by her family who becomes part of an army of women who protected a King, she is sold into slavery when she falls in love and is a broken woman by the time she reaches the plantation having taught her daughter all of her survival skills.
It's powerful stuff and these stories demand to be told. The human exploitation by slave owners, their belief in the right to abuse, hound or sell on never fails to provoke responses of disgust and here all this is handled magnificently.
For many in this situation a belief in God is often depicted as a survival strategy, the hope for salvation and something better in the after-life. God is not really present here, the beliefs are in powers more elemental and spiritual. Is Annis guided by the spirits or are the echoes she feels the ghosts of her ancestors or her own intuition as a girl educated to survive?
Increasingly, the elemental dominates. The spirits of wind and water do give a sense of the novel as “sacred text” but, and this is a personal thing, it is not something I strongly respond to. The novel never loses its way- it is strong throughout but it doesn’t end up for me having the same power as “Sing, Unburied, Sing”.
It is a novel saturated in grief and I was saddened to discover that the author lost her husband who was just aged 33 in 2020. The sensitivity and introspection of this novel is no doubt influenced by that.
It’s a very strong book with sections I will probably remember forever. And there may come a time in my life when this elemental spirituality will make more sense for me and when it does I know I’ll find it within this work and will seek it out again. I do respect that this will become an important book for many people.
Let Us Descend is published by Bloomsbury in the UK on 24th October 2023. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

I thank NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for providing me with an ARC copy of this novel, which I freely chose to review.
I read Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, admired it enormously, and knew I had to check her most recent book as well. There are many similar aspects between the two (so, anybody who enjoyed the previous one, should rush to get this one), but also some differences.
Here, the action takes place in slavery times, and we see (and hear, taste, smell, and feel) things from the point of view of a single, but very special character, Annis (or Arese, her mother’s name for her), a young girl, a house slave whose mother is the repository of the training and the stories passed on from mother to daughter, and who is eager to train her daughter and make sure she remembers the stories of the women of the family, knows how to defend herself, avoid danger, never give up, and always love herself.
The women in her family also have a special gift (at times a curse), they can see, talk, and feel spirits. She is always aware of some presence around them, but it only manifests itself once her mother is sold and she tries to reconnect with her family tradition. She lives through heartache, abuse, torture (physical and mental), and she is accompanied by Aza, who at first presents as her grandmother and manifests as a force of nature, sometimes aiding and sometimes hindering Annis’s efforts to not only survive but to become her own woman and live life her own way. Annis moves in time and space (she is sold in New Orleans where although she is a slave, she refuses to accept the label they try to impose on her), and we follow her in her journey, both, utterly realistic and also suffused by magic, otherworldly forces, and spirits that live all around her and try to drag her into their realms and make her worship them. But Annis, whose voice and thoughts we read, in first-person, has her own ideas.
This novel made me think of Beloved, and it is as beautifully written as Toni Morrison’s novel, but the style of writing is quite different. There are also references to Dante’s Divine Comedy, and those go beyond the title. The descriptions are poetical even when the experiences or events described might be horrific, and some scenes are truly unforgettable (her punishments in ‘the hole’, for example). Readers who prefer a totally realistic writing style that keeps moving the plot along, might not appreciate her writing. On the other hand, those fond of magical realism, stream of consciousness, and somewhat abstract and impressionistic writing, should check this one.
As I have mentioned, Annis suffers abuse and lives in terrible conditions, and she isn’t the only one in the novel, so readers need to be cautious if they think the content might be upsetting for them.
I particularly enjoyed the immersive writing style, whereby the language becomes a web wrapping around you or a stream of water you’re submerged in, and also the precious nature of the relationship of the protagonist with other women, slaves like her, in particular with her mother and Safi, her first companion, and lover.
This is another beautiful, moving, hard, and ultimately empowering novel, which I recommend to readers who love precious and descriptive writing and are happy to accept that there are more things in heaven and earth than we might know about.

A lyrical, beautiful read but a very difficult one. Annis is immersed in a spirit life that shields and comforts her from life as a slave, a life that is heartbreakingly terrible.

This is a book that deserves world-wide recognition. Although a work of fiction, Jesmyn Ward has created a vivid record of one woman's personal experience of slavery, in her own voice. At one point, Annis compares her position to the descent into Hell in Dante's Inferno. Her family has been enslaved for three generations. Her slave-owner father decides to sell both her and her mother, subjecting them to the horrors and indignity of a slave market. Throughout, she keeps her sanity and sense of worth by remembering the stories of her ancestors and imagining her best friend is with her. A thought-provoking and ultimately uplifting book.

It’s difficult to review a book like this which is so heartbreaking and beautiful and wonderful and yet so full of pain. Jesmyn Ward is a helluva writer and this tale of slavery, spirits, and freedom is spell binding. There are passages where you pause, then reread. There are paragraphs which are poetry where she repeats sentence beginnings over a page and the rhythm gets into your soul.

Annis’ life is so hard and awful things happen to her and her belief in freedom and her ability to see and to know are sorely tested. The ending just rushes you through to bring you out to an area to let you breathe deep. It’s impossible to describe this book and will be equally impossible to forget.

An absolute master writer. I was given a copy of this book by NetGalley

This book gave me so many mixed emotions. It is beautifully written with lyrical prose that pulls you into the heart of the book and the body of Annis as she makes her way through life.

But the simple truth is that the book made me weep for the utter horror of those lives that Jesmyn Ward brings to life. Annis is the daughter of a slave who has been raped by her master. In turn the master casts his eye on Annis but her mother stands in the way. The answer - to sell her mother and leave Annis without protection.

But Annis finds a new love in Safi, another slave girl. The answer to the master's wrath upon the discovery is to sell Annis and Safi which is where the real story begins. Annis is marched away by the same Georgia Man who took her mother. The march is long and deadly and at the end is another plantation and more misery.

I think it is this that broke my heart over and over -- the fact that this is the way one human being is treated by another because of the colour of their skin. This inequality makes me sick to my stomach and the imagining of Annis's chained march through swamps and rivers with little food and less rest is so brutal. Her whole life has been brutal as was her mother's and her grandmother's.

Annis has hidden strengths and the eye of Aza, the goddess is always upon her. Annis resolves to make her own way in life and not to be beholden to any one.

What Jesmyn Ward has written is a beautiful and heartbreaking tale of female strength and resilience in the face of overwhelming odds. Annis is a fantastic character - not unbreakable but tough and not afraid to fight back.

I loved this book despite the tears and the disgust at the truths it holds. Read it. Every word is worth your time.

Thankyou so much to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for the advance review copy.

The main protagonist of 'Let us Descend' by Jasmyn Ward is Annis, a third generation slave. Her grandmother, once an amazon like warrior and 'wife' to a king, was brought to America by boat. She trained her daughter in combat and taught her empowering stories, but her daughter remained enslaved and was impregnated by the plantation owner. In turn, she tried to train Annis to use her body like a weapon to prevent her having the same fate, despite the planation owner being her father.

Throughout the novel, Ward focuses on Annis's pursuit of hope and freedom, despite her enslavement, degradation and constant sense of loss and grief. At times, this novel was very difficult to read, and it took me a long time to finish due to the brutality Annis's experiences. At the time of writing this story Ward was experiencing her own loss and grief and it pervades her writing. Her writing is lyrical and contains turns of phrase that are breath-taking, even if at times they require the reader to concentrate. There is hope within the novel, but Ward does not shy away from the awfulness of slavery.

I had imagined it would be difficult in this day and age to tell a story about slavery in a totally new way but I have never read anything that humanises slaves as much as this novel did, it's a truly visceral experience. Whilst it's not an easy read, Anisa is such a captivating central character that I couldn't put this book down and it stayed with me long after I'd read it. The elements of almost magic realism didn't work quite as well for me but they're not a distraction from the wider story and the novel is a stunning achievement. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Believe all praise of this . This is well beyond 'just a book'

There is, I thought, an extremely high risk introduction to this book, by Ward’s publisher at Bloomsbury :

Dear reader,

You are holding in your hand a masterpiece. This isn’t a word I use lightly or often………It is a text that feels almost sacred. The artistry is unparalleled”

High risk, I thought, was this just marketing puff?

Well no. From the off, this story of Annis, a young girl, enslaved in the Carolinas, later walked to New Orleans, and sold, grabbed me.

Ward is an astonishing writer, this is prose with the tight rhythms and potent language of poetry. Periodically I was reading this aloud, in order to slow down, to savour the language, its music. There’s something shamanic going on here

Often, I could neither bear to read on, nor bear to stop. Annis, her narrator, is also shamanic, inhabiting a world which is alive and sacred. The gaps between spirit and matter become thin. Inevitably, Ward’s story is supremely difficult to read, because the reader MUST feel a kind of ancestral shame and responsibility if of a race that enslaved, and, I assume a depth of grief and rage if of an ancestry which was enslaved.

Her writing goes well beyond what engages the conscious, rational mind – though it does that too, superbly. This gets felt in the viscera, the physical, emotional, spiritual heart. It’s a 3D experience, a ‘virtual reality’ for the reader, one which of course was horrifyingly not ‘virtual’ for many.

Despite the darkness, the rage, the grief, is something knotty, ferociously resilient. A powerful love and connection, a refusal to be victim, a deep resisting pushback against what was done.

I can’t say anything more about plot or character, because this book should not be mediated through another reader’s journey. Each reader should just throw themselves into Jesmyn Ward’s river of story, and be taken by it.

I have one small quibble with Ward’s publisher. It is the word ‘almost’.

This was an amazing tale of slavery that was beautifully written and so easy to imagine on a screen. Lyrical and fast moving this is a great read

i've loved jesmyn ward's books for a while, from the beautiful prose to the vivid vivid storytelling.

This is the fourth novel by Jesmyn Ward who has already won the US National Book award for Fiction with her previous two novels “Salvage The Bones” and “Sing, Unburied Sing” which was also Women’s Prize shortlisted in the vintage 2018 year of that prize.

This novel is something of a departure from her more contemporary novels set in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage as it is a visceral tale of slavery set some 150+ years ago. It will not though I suspect be a departure from the prize success of her previous novels as I expect to see this feature on both UK and particularly US prize lists (and in fact it has already made the Kirkus Prize shortlist, although surprisingly and to widespread dismay not the NBA longlist).

In August 2020 the author wrote a moving Vanity Fair article (available here, although with a paywall:
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2020/08/jesmyn-ward-on-husbands-death-and-grief-during-covid) about the tragic loss of her husband (“My Beloved died in January” – the article starts) from acute respiratory distress syndrome in January 2020 and talked about the novel she was writing:

"As the pandemic settled in and stretched, I set my alarms to wake early, and on mornings after nights where I actually slept, I woke and worked on my novel in progress. The novel is about a woman who is even more intimately acquainted with grief than I am, an enslaved woman whose mother is stolen from her and sold south to New Orleans, whose lover is stolen from her and sold south, who herself is sold south and descends into the hell of chattel slavery in the mid-1800s. My loss was a tender second skin. I shrugged against it as I wrote, haltingly, about this woman who speaks to spirits and fights her way across rivers …. My commitment surprised me. Even in a pandemic, even in grief, I found myself commanded to amplify the voices of the dead that sing to me, from their boat to my boat, on the sea of time. "

What we have here is that novel and it is one I think infused with the grief but also with a sense of the anger filled hope, in the face of a time and place that seeks to negate a sense of self and hope, that the author felt watching the Black Lives Matters protests around the world (as she mentions in the second half of the article).

The story is told in an intense and visceral first person by Annis (although her real name which only her mother uses is Arese) – her mother tells her (while also teaching her to fight with sharpened sticks)

“You the granddaughter of a woman warrior. She was married to the Fon king, given by her daddy because he had so many daughters, and he was rich. The king had thousands of warrior wives. They guarded him, hunted for him, fought for him.” She poked the bush above me. “The warrior wives was married to the king, but the knife was they husband, the cutlass they lover. You my child, my mama’s child. My mother, the fighter—her name was Azagueni, but I called her Mama Aza.”

Mama Aza though fell foul of the King after she fell for one of his guards and was sold to slave traders and shipped to America – already pregnant with Annis’s mother – where she shortly after died. Now Mama Aza’s daughter (Annis’s mother) and Annis are slaves on a small plantation – Annis’s moher having been raped by the plantation owner and therefore half-sister to the two daughters of the household and often eavesdrops on their tutoring.

A recurring image is of bees – starting when Annis overhears the tutor talking about bees in the context of Aristotle, but taking on much wider significance firstly with some bees that Annis looks after and then as a metaphor which also links to the book’s title

When the master starts to turn his attention to his own daughter - Annis, he sells her mother to a slave trader (the Georgia Man) to get him out of the way, and in her despair Annis is struck by what she hears of (what we know as) Dante’s Divine Comedy and particularly the “Inferno” / descent into hell

And this quickly becomes a lived out metaphor for Annis – caught in an embrace with another slave (Safi who has become her comfort and then lover) both are handed over to the Georgia Man and set out on a harrowing journey/descent to New Orleans (Safi escaping on route although not before being raped), from their to the New Orleans slave markets, and from there to a small sugar plantation where she works as housemaid/cook/herbal healer/sometime sugar harvester in a brutal regime which includes a dreaded solitary confinement punishment hole.

From her journey to New Orleans onwards, Annis’s life and the book’s narration increasingly takes place on two levels – the earthly plane and a spiritual/magic realism one.

A number of spirits appear to Annis of which the major ones are: Aza – a storm spirit who took on Mama Aza’s name; They Who Take And Give – a collection of earth based spirits; and the river. I did wonder if these were meant to match the three guides of Dante - Virgil, Beatrice and Saint Bernard. I think also there are links to Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” (and note how the Vanity Fair article begins).

But this aspect of the novel seemed to increasingly dominate the narrative to an extent that was excessive for me and rather distanced me from it as I was not really always clear what was happening – and overall left this as a novel that I perhaps admired for its amazing imagery much more than I enjoyed.

This story unfolds against the backdrop of the pre-Civil War era, shedding light on the brutal realities of slavery. While undeniably heartbreaking, it primarily revolves around the tale of a family—a mother and daughter—whose lives are brutally torn apart at the arbitrary whim of their “master.” His sole intention is to separate them, ensuring that the mother’s daughter, Annis, who also happens to be his own child, remains ignorant of the valuable lessons her mother seeks to impart. Thus, he sells her off while she is still in her tender years.

The narrative’s beauty lies in its fluidity, even during the most agonizing moments. It imparts an authenticity to these experiences, making them resonate deeply.

Throughout the story, there’s a pervasive sense of spirituality, although it’s not necessarily tied to organized religion. Instead, it’s rooted in the spirits that guide and empower these individuals on their arduous journey.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This author writes in a very poetic style.
Annis is a black girl born of a slave mother and fathered by the boss man.
Her mother is sold on as is Annis and her friend Safi.
After being made to walk from Carolina to New Orleans under appalling conditions and starved, she eventually is bought by a woman who runs a sugar plantation in the swamps outside of New Orleans. The woman treats all her slaves so badly that she doesn't even feed them.. Annie then starts to see and hear the "spirits". Her only hope is to escape with their help, but how and where?
Did I like this book? I think so.

Jesmyn Ward's writing can write, there's no doubt about it.
And still, as I read her new novel, I found myself struggling to get through it. I kept thinking "do we need another story about slaves? What does this one have that previous ones didn't?" And the answer was... spirits. Way too many spirits. And I understand that's probably the main selling point of this book, but it was too much for me.
I also found it quite slow moving. Again, there's a reason for it, but I guess this book just wasn't for me.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

This wonderful book will stay with me for a very long time. I’ve read many slave narratives but this works on a new level of consciousness; beyond the chains, the fear and the brutality, to a spiritual, beautiful and emancipated world of love and memory and sisterhood. And an appreciation of nature’s beauty.
From the cotton and sugar plantations, Annis takes us through her experiences. The walk from slave market to plantation is in itself brutal beyond words, and tests the resilience of our narrator to its limit. We feel every minute of her physical punishment and mental torture; desperate hunger and thirst.
But strengthened by the spirit of her mother and warrior African grandmother, and sustained in the present by nature’s beauty; the bees, the honeyed sun, the stars. Such is the nature of true heroism.
Thank you to #NetGalley and #BloomsburyplcUK for my ARC

Let Us Descend is an imagined telling of Annis's life, She is born the illegitimate black daughter of a white slave master. We follow her growing up in the Carolinas, working beside her mother A grim but bearable life. But things get a lot worse when first her mother, and later she, are sent away to be sold. For Annis this involves a brutal trek, over many weeks down to New Orleans, a march she barely survives, only to then be sold to a sugar plantation owner who sets her to work in the kitchen.
Annis however is made of strong stuff and ultimately risks all by running away, an action that has the likely outcome of her being mauled to death by the master's pursuing hounds. Will she survive and, if so, what might her future hold.?
Jermyn Ward pulls no punches and reminds us, yet again, of the generational horror that was black slavery. What one takes away, however, is the self-belief and determination that allowed Annis to break her chains. Simply put, this is inspirational writing at it's best.