WilmU Book Club

April 2019 | Mudbound

Monday, April 8, 2019 | 12:30 PM
Pratt Student Center, New Castle Campus

In celebration of National Library Week, please join the WilmU Book Club for a discussion on Hillary Jordan's book, Mudbound.

Students and Faculty members can borrow a copy of the book from the Delaware Library Catalog. Click on 'Place Hold' to have the book sent to the Wilmington University Library.

A film adaptation is now streaming on Netflix

Mudbound has been selected as the New Castle County Reads book of 2019.

An evening with author Hillary Jordan will be held on Wednesday, April 10, at 7:00 pm at the Chase Center on the Riverfront. A Q & A session and book signing will follow the author talk. This event is free and open to the public.

Wednesday, April 10, 2019 | 7:00 PM
The Chase Center, Wilmington Riverfront

mudbound event book cover

ABOUT THE BOOK

In the winter of 1946, Henry McAllen moves his wife, Laura, from their comfortable home in Memphis to a remote cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta, a place she finds both foreign and frightening. While Henry works the land he loves, Laura struggles to raise their two young daughters in a rude shack with no indoor plumbing or electricity, under the eye of her hateful, racist father-in-law. When it rains, the waters rise up and swallow the bridge to town, stranding the family in a sea of mud.

As the McAllans are being tested in every way, two celebrated soldiers of World War II return home to the Delta. Jamie McAllan is everything his older brother Henry is not: charming, handsome and sensitive to Laura’s plight, but also haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black tenant farmers who live on the McAllan farm, comes home from fighting the Nazis with the shine of a war hero, only to face far more personal—and dangerous—battles against the ingrained bigotry of his own countrymen. It is the unlikely friendship of these two brothers-in-arms, and the passions they arouse in others, that drive this powerful debut novel.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hillary Jordan is the author of the novels Mudbound (2008) and When She Woke (2011), as well as the digital short "Aftermirth," all published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Her stories have been translated into 15 languages.

When she's not scribbling away, Hillary teaches the occasional writing workshop and gives talks at colleges, literary festivals, and community libraries. She has a BA from Wellesley College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University. She grew up in Dallas, TX and Muskogee, OK and currently lives in Brooklyn, along with half the writers in America.

Upcoming Book Club Events

May 23, 2019: WilmU Book Club | Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
June 2019: TBA
July 2019: Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats