In a story, as in life, there is never a single element at work. The work of an author is to weave together all the aspects in play in a manner that does not feel contrived. The variety of dynamics operating in reality are indiscernible; this lends authenticity. But the writer has to work with the page upon which things gain permanence; the reader can perceive what is work all at once, and this is where battling formula becomes important. Hillary Jordan does so with incredible grace in her debut novel "Mudbound."
The setting is the delta belt of America in the 1940s. Laura McAllan has married a man who is bound to the earth in a way she didn't understand when they met, and she was slowly wooed, in Memphis. She is a woman used to the usual comforts of a city: running water, proximity to her family and friends, minor luxuries. Her abrupt removal to the country is difficult in the absence of these basics and does not have a passionate love to thrive upon; her marriage to Henry was a matter of amicable convenience for both of them.
In the country their lives are complicated despite a return to the allegedly simple pleasures of being in direct contact with the earth. Day to day life acquires unanticipated horrors for Laura, not the least of which is dealing with her cantankerous father-in-law, Pappy. He is a fearful presence in her life, assuming ailments to shirk work and burdening her with petty requests. Pappy is the most unbearable wedge that surfaces between the couple.
Laura bears two children and develops a dependence on the wife of one of her husband's tenants, Florence Johnson. The Johnsons are sharecroppers on the McAllan's land and they are black. Florence and Laura build a cautious relationship, battling their cultivated distrust of the other race.
World War II comes to an end in Europe and its conclusion is the source of significant changes on the farm. For the McAllan family, this means the return of Henry's brother Jamie. For the Johnsons, this means the return of their eldest son, Ronsel, also a soldier in the U.S. Army.
Jordan carefully traces the transition that Ronsel is forced to face when he returns to his native soil. The fact that whites and blacks fought side-by-side, saving each other's lives and defending their country, is lost in his Atlantic crossing. Ronsel returns to find that his treatment is just as despicable as ever, treatment that rankles all the more because of the decency with which he has experienced in Europe.
The lives of the McAllan and Johnson families become increasingly entwined. Pappy is particularly rooted in his racist disdain and the people of the delta are not rearing for a change. Lines between the races that were previously impermeable begin to waver, a development that does not sit well in the south. Jamie's return awakens an aspect of Laura presumed lost. He is the charmer, the jokester, the unsteady brother. Exhausted by the reality of life as a farm wife, Laura catches onto the new emotion that Jamie evokes and cultivates it with warmth that is unnecessary with her husband.
As things mount to a boiling point in the novel, Jordan handles the additions to her fiction with a light hand. She gently casts each of her characters in a glow that reveals their sorrow-tinged struggles and their weaknesses. Their evolutions are fragile and she is attuned to the quantity of emotions at work. The story is not told with urgency, but the weight of the conflicts and their repercussions are evident without exaggerated elaboration.
"Mudbound" is incredibly well written. Jordan conveys difficulty of time, place, circumstance, gender and race without pushing their interconnections or holding forth on the intrinsic disadvantages. The result is a compelling novel and an excellent debut.