Jesmyn Ward's new novel is Sing, Unburied, Sing. One of her six favorite books featuring absent parents, as shared at The Week magazine:As I Lay Dying by William FaulknerRead about the other entries on the list.
Addie, the Bundren matriarch, dies at the beginning of the novel, and the rest revolves around her absence. Her ghost drives the Bundrens unrelentingly onward, making her husband's failings even more tragic.
As I Lay Dying is on Emily Ruskovich's top ten list of rural American novels, Jeff Somers's top five list of books written in very unlikely places, Shaun Byron Fitzpatrick's list of eight of the most badass ladies in all of banned literature, Nicole Hill's lists of nine of the biggest martyrs in fiction and five books that, like country and western songs, tell "stories of agony and ecstasy, soaring highs and mighty powerful lows, heartache and hard living," Laura Frost's list of the ten best modernist books (in English), Helen Humphreys's top ten list of books on grieving, John Mullan's list of ten of the best teeth in literature, Jon McGregor's list of the top ten dead bodies in literature, Roy Blount Jr.'s list of five favorite books of Southern humor, and James Franco's six best books list.The “My mother is a fish.” chapter in As I Lay Dying is among the ten most notorious parts of famous books according to Gabe Habash.
--Marshal Zeringue