Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

To be discussed on January, 7, 2009 at 6:30 p.m.

In the winter of 1946, Henry McAllen moves his city-bred wife, Laura, from their comfortable home in Memphis to a remote cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta — a place she finds both foreign and frightening. While Henry works the land he loves, Laura struggles to raise their two young children in a rude shack with no indoor plumbing or electricity, under the eye of her hateful, racist father-in-law. When it rains, the waters rise up and swallow the bridge to town, stranding the family in a sea of mud.

As the McAllans are being tested in every way, two celebrated soldiers of World War II return home to the Delta. Jamie McAllan is everything his older brother Henry is not: charming, handsome, and sensitive to Laura’s plight, but also haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black tenant farmers who live on the McAllan farm, comes home from fighting the Nazis with the shine of a war hero, only to face far more personal - and dangerous -battles against the ingrained bigotry of his own countrymen. It is the unlikely friendship of these two brothers-in-arms, and the passions they arouse in others, that drive this powerful debut novel.

1. Inequality is a major theme affecting each character in the novel. What are the main forms it takes?

2. Henry buys the farm without consulting Laura. What does Mudbound tell us about the ways that the relationships between husbands and wives have changed?

3. Henry is devoted to the land and farming. Discuss other examples of ownership in the novel.

4. How did Ronsel and Jamie’s experience of war differ?

5. Jamie suggests that what happens to Ronsel is his fault. Do you think this is fair? Should someone be blamed even though their actions were well intentioned?

6. ‘You got to go along to go along’ p. 42. Is it ever excusable to accept racism in order to survive?

7. Compare Laura and Florence. In what ways do their experiences of motherhood differ?

8. Which character do you find most likable/do you think you are most like?

9. How would you have behaved if you were Florenece? Hap?

10. Do you think the ending is hopeful?