Table of Contents
About The Book
“Nothing short of epic, magical, and intensely moving.” —Vogue • “A novel of triumph.” —The Washington Post • “Harrowing, immersive, and other-worldly.” —People
From “one of America’s finest living writers” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “heir apparent to Toni Morrison” (LitHub)—comes a haunting masterpiece about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War that’s destined to become a classic.
Let Us Descend describes a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. A journey that is as beautifully rendered as it is heart wrenching, the novel is “[t]he literary equivalent of an open wound from which poetry pours” (NPR).
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide. 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. While Annis leads readers through the descent, hers is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this “[s]earing and lyrical…raw, transcendent, and ultimately hopeful” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land—the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward’s most magnificent novel yet.
Reading Group Guide
“‘Let us descend,’ the poet now began, ‘and enter this blind world.’”—Inferno, Dante Alighieri
Two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward stuns in a new lyrical novel about an enslaved girl who must walk on foot from North Carolina to New Orleans. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, seeks comfort in the memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. During her journey, Annis 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. In this story of rebirth and reclamation, Ward guides readers through the descent—painting an intimate, searing portrait of Black grief and joy.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1. Annis describes her mother as “a woman who hides a tender heart” (page 4). Name a few moments when Mama reveals her tenderness. How does she conceal her “tender heart” and, in your opinion, what is she protecting by hiding it?
2. Turn to page 6. Read from “I take care to hide . . .” to the text break on page 9 (“Queens.”). Bees appear as a motif throughout the novel. According to this passage, what might bees symbolize in Let Us Descend?
3. On page 33, Annis listens through the door as her half-sisters are taught a passage from Dante’s Inferno. Dante’s Inferno is a literary antecedent for this book—just as Annis is accompanied on her walk south by Aza, Dante was lead through the nine circles of Hell by the spirit of Virgil. Chart Annis’s journey from the Carolinas to New Orleans. Can you identify any “circles of Hell” she might have waded through? What distinguishes one from another? How did Ward’s allusions to Inferno impact your reading of the novel?
4. Consider the role of spirits in Let Us Descend. They can be sinister, with selfish needs and malicious plans, or angelic guides offering counsel and comfort, and everything in between. How would you characterize Aza when she first appears to Annis in Chapter 3?
5. When she arrives in New Orleans, Annis finds a new world she has never encountered—many brown people, some even lighter than she is, are free, able to “walk through the world as if every step they take is their own” (page 92). These women avert their eyes from Annis, Phyllis, and the other enslaved people. Shortly after, a group of young boys stare at Annis, but their mother whisks them away. Why are the free people of New Orleans reluctant to look at the captives as they walk by? On the other hand, why is it so hard for Phyllis and Annis to look away from the free Black people?
6. Turn to page 113, where Annis narrates, “New Orleans is a hive, and us the honey.” What do you think she means?
7. Discuss Annis’s encounter with They Who Take and Give, the spirits of the ground, while she is confined to “The Hole” on pages 158 to 164. How do you characterize her emotional journey across this encounter? Does this interaction alter her perception of the spirits? Did it alter yours?
8. By cutting her hair, Annis attempts to take control over one element of her life—she severs an obvious connection to her complicated ancestry. What makes Annis’s hair meaningful in this way? Why do you think she offers her hair to They Who Take and Give?
9. Consider Aza’s physical changes. For example, on page 184, she shrinks, changing form so that it almost looks to Annis that they “could be sisters.” Note also how Aza takes on Mama Aza’s appearance throughout. Why does Aza shape shift in this way? What, if anything, is she hoping to get from Annis as a result?
10. Reflect on the events of Chapter 13. Annis, pregnant and alone in her new home, seems hopeful, healthy, and strong. From where does she draw this strength? How do you envision her new life once her child is born?
11. By the end of the novel, it is clear that Aza is an imposter—she has stolen Mama Aza’s name and hungers for Annis’s love and devotion. Naming is one way to preserve history and culture, and Aza admits to taking Azagueni’s (Mama Aza’s) name so it would live. Consider the custom, practiced throughout antebellum American history, of renaming enslaved persons so that they shared a surname with their enslavers. In this historical context, what is the power of a name?
12. Discuss the roles the various spirits play in this novel. What is their fate? How do you imagine they might endure, or not, through history and into future generations?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. Jesmyn Ward’s previous books have earned her two National Book Awards, a MacArthur Fellowship, and other prestigious honors. Read Sing, Unburied, Sing: What role do ghosts play that novel? Compare Leonie and Given to Annis and Aza. Or, read Salvage the Bones: What role does nature play in that novel? How is its ferocity depicted in that novel in comparison to this one?
2. Read Beloved by Toni Morrison. How do the two books exist in conversation with one another?
3. Watch Roots, the 1977 miniseries that told the saga of American families by tracing the connection between their origins in Africa and their present in America. What is the significance of family legacy in African American history?
4. Let Us Descend is filled with references to historical practices, places, and events. Research the histories of plaçage women, the Great Dismal Swamp, and maroon colonies.
About The Author
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.
Product Details
- Publisher: Scribner (October 24, 2023)
- Length: 320 pages
- ISBN13: 9781982104511
Raves and Reviews
"[Ward's] most masterful work yet... Pitting ancestral wisdom and human connection against the arbitrary brutality of slavery, this book will have readers torn between wanting to savor the richness of every sentence and needing to know, immediately, what happens next."—Oprah Daily
“Imaginative... Combining magical realism with historical fiction, two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward’s fourth novel tells the story of Annis, an enslaved girl in the antebellum South... To survive, she must tap into the mystical in this heart-wrenching narrative of the American South in the age of slavery.”—Time
“The power and artistry of Ward's work has been celebrated with numerous major awards, and her new novel will be a magnet for readers.”—Booklist (starred review)
"[Ward] employs her prodigious skills to craft a deeply moving and empathic story... This testament to Ward’s mastery of language should leave readers scrambling for a highlighter.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“Readers won’t be able to turn away.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Saturated with terror and enchantment… What gives this volume its stature and heft among other recent novels are the power, precision, and visionary flow of Ward’s writing.”—Kirkus (starred review)
“Jesmyn is, quite simply, the best of us.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates
"In Let Us Descend, Jesmyn Ward resurrects an enslaved girl out of the lost folds of the antebellum South, twists magic through every raindrop, mushroom, and stalk of sugar cane, and drops you into the middle of her harrowing, unendurable, magnificent song. This is a gripping, mythic, bone-pulverizing descent into the grim darkness of American slavery—and yet somehow this novel simultaneously leaves you in awe of the human capacity to not only endure, but to ascend back to the light. A spectacular achievement."—Anthony Doerr, author of Cloud Cuckoo Land and All The Light We Cannot See
Awards and Honors
- Carnegie Medal Honor Book
Resources and Downloads
High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): Let Us Descend eBook 9781982104511
- Author Photo (jpg): Jesmyn Ward Photograph by Beowulf Sheehan(0.1 MB)
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