Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

Symbolic, spiritual, and sorrowful yet at the same time proud, determined, and powerful. This is not your typical novel about American slavery. Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward offers a story of rebirth on a very intimate level as seen through the eyes of a young woman born into slavery, and the physical and emotional journey she must take to pull herself from the pits of a living hell.

Deep in the night, under the light of the full moon, Annis is led by her mother to a clearing in the woods far from the plantation. It is here that her mother digs up two long spears hidden amongst the roots of a great tree. Annis learns that one of the spears belonged to her grandmother, Mama Aza, who had been a woman warrior married to a king. Annis’ mother takes her to the clearing once a month to tell her stories of the past and to teach her how to fight with the spear. When her mother is sold and sent away, Annis is lost without her. When the Georgia Man comes for Annis, she is forced to make the long journey to New Orleans on foot. Roped together with other slaves, she must use the lessons her mother taught her in order to survive. As her journey progresses, becoming more difficult with every step, she is visited by a spirit appearing in Mama Aza’s form. With more spirits appearing along the way, each vying for her love and devotion, Annis is faced with many tough decisions. She must call upon the wisdom and guidance of her mother and trust her intuition as she descends into hell.

The most beautiful and unique aspect of this novel was the spiritual/paranormal element to Annis’ journey. As she walks with the other slaves, starving and in psychological turmoil, she begins to see and hear spirits, spirits that were created from the pain, suffering and death of all the slaves that had perished on the journey to the new world. The thought that intense pain can create a lasting impression on the earth is tragic yet powerful. Let Us Descend reads very much like a tale of Greek mythology with Annis as the hero who must overcome many obstacles on the journey to victory. The spirits that call to her are like the Greek gods, always offering a great prize but at a steep cost. Mixed into this mythological account is also the reference to Dante’s Inferno which offers an incredibly ominous element to the story.

She must call upon the wisdom and guidance of her mother and trust her intuition as she descends into hell.

Let Us Descend gives a very real account of the physical and psychological suffering that Annis and the other slaves would have endured. How many of these spirits appeared to Annis simply because she was suffering from starvation, exposure to the elements and a mental breakdown? Think of the absolute defeat that these individuals would have felt, the mental health conditions that would have developed. Little food and water, no shoes, no family, unforgiving weather conditions, fear of rape, fear of death – how much can one person endure? For Annis to persevere as she did would have taken a lot of resilience and a lot of faith in herself. Knowing that she had the warrior blood of her grandmother coursing through her veins surely would have helped her on her way.

Ward writes of the abuses inflicted on the slaves with a truth and sharpness that will rock you to your core. The assault on the slaves as depicted in this novel is a reminder of how awful people are treated due to differences in appearance, lifestyle, and beliefs. To be ripped from your homeland, tortured, and chained like an animal and forced into a lifetime of serving someone else’s needs is unimaginable. Let Us Descend is a story of pain and suffering but also of strength and triumph with an interesting twist of spirituality, one I won’t soon forget.

Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the historic winner—first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.

Publisher: Scribner (October 24, 2023)
Hardcover 8″ x 6″ | 320 pages
ISBN: 9781982104498

Laura Patterson

Laura Patterson is a Registered Acupuncturist and a QA Lab Technician from rural New Brunswick where she lives with her husband and twin boys. She has a BSc in Biology and a Diploma in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture. When she's not working in the lab or in her clinic, she enjoys camping and adventuring with her family, reading many books, and writing book reviews.