Mudbound

Mudbound is a 2008 novel by author Hillary Jordan. It is set in the southern delta of Mississippi in the years immediately following World War II. Over the course of the story, the fates of two intertwined families are irreversibly changed by a tragedy provoked by virulent racism. The novel explores themes of love, family, loyalty, duty, and the uneasy relationship African Americans have had with the South in the years following emancipation.

As the story begins, a 30-year-old woman named Laura is resigned to what she considers her inevitable spinsterhood, now that she is past marrying age. But soon she meets a man named Henry McAllan who courts and then marries her. At the outset of their marriage, they live in Memphis and Laura gives birth to two daughters. When the husband of Henry’s sister Eboline kills himself, Henry buys a farm near her and moves the family to help her in the aftermath of the suicide. Henry rents a nice home for the family but learns that he has been the victim of a scam when they arrive. They are forced to live in the farmhouse on the farmland, without electricity, running water, or indoor plumbing. They also bring Henry’s father Pappy, a cantankerous racist who enjoys bullying Laura, the children, and two of the black tenants on Henry’s land, Hap and Florence Jackson.

Florence begins keeping house for Laura and they become friendly. Henry’s younger brother Jamie returns from the war and visits the family. He is vivacious and charming, and Laura is soon falling in love with him. Near the mid-point of the novel, they have sex, but hide their affair from Henry. Florence’s son Ronsel returns from the war shortly after Jamie and becomes friends with Jamie. They begin to drink together and are often seen in town in each other’s company, raising the ire of the local racists, including several Klan members.

During the war, Ronsel became a tank commander. After liberating the concentration camp of Dachau with his battalion, he falls in love with a white German woman whom he calls Resl. Later he will learn, via letter, that he had gotten Resl pregnant before coming home, and now he has a son. While riding in the front seat with Jamie, he drops the letter on the floor, where it is found by Pappy, who passes it on to several of his friends. They arrive in the robes of the Ku Klux Klan and take Ronsel into the sawmill. Jamie interrupts before they can lynch Ronsel, but they beat him and then force Jamie to choose Ronsel’s punishment: They will either castrate him, take his eyes, cut off his hands, or cut out his tongue. Jamie chooses that they cut out Ronsel’s tongue.

After, Jamie finds Pappy asleep in the house and smothers him with a pillow, killing him before Florence can. As the novel ends, they bury Pappy and the Jacksons leave the land with Ronsel, who is now mute. 

Mudbound is an examination of racism, inequality, and the venomous racist attitudes gripping the south even after the ostensible freeing of the slaves. Ronsel’s status as a war hero does not grant him any special privilege, or even minimal respect, when he returns to Mississippi, and his boldness and defiance lead to his mutilation.