Let Us Descend is a sensory experience like no other. Every searing page beckons the reader to descend further into Jesmyn Ward's nightmare world of grief, enslavement, and spiritual mysteries.

Taking literary inspiration from Dante's Inferno, Ward invites us to follow along on an odyssey through hell. That hell, of course, being slavery. Our guide is Annis, born enslaved in North Carolina but the granddaughter of a woman warrior from Africa. Annis is already well acquainted with loss and pain by the time we meet her, but things quickly go from bad to worse. Her mother, who has taught Annis to fight even though these skills appear useless to them in their present circumstances, is sent away with a slave trader after protecting her daughter from the advances of the plantation owner (who is also Annis' father). After allowing herself to be consumed by grief and a sexual relationship with another enslaved girl, Annis herself is picked up by the slave trader and sent through dangerous, unknown wilds to New Orleans before ending up on a sugar plantation.

The hype machine can be unforgiving. If you set your expectations very high, it can be nearly impossible for anyone to reach them. So allow me to be a little measured when I say that Let Us Descend is one of those rare gems capable of withstanding the pressure of expectation.

What Jesmyn Ward does bring to the table is a rather unprecedented sensory experience. She makes you feel what Annis feels, gets you to smell what she smells and taste what she tastes. When Annis touches something, you can imagine exactly what it feels like. When she hurts, the pages blister with her pain. When she gets hungry, your stomach contracts.

This, combined with the overwhelming sense of grief that pervades the novel (understandably, given that Ward lost her husband in January of 2020) can make for an unpleasant reading experience--in much the same way that Toni Morrison's Beloved feels unpleasant to read. However, in both cases the prickliness is deliberate. After all, why should a novel about enslavement make you feel good? In that sense, Let Us Descend feels like a, well, descendant of Morrison's landmark novel.

But while Beloved is largely intellectual and punctuated with violence, Let Us Descend is a more visceral experience. It isn't using metaphor or symbolism, and it isn't forcing the reader to be an active participant in order to understand what it's doing. It does have that stuff with the spirit world, and honestly, I'm not quite sure I understand everything happening there, but the power of Let Us Descend comes from Ward's ability to put you on the ground with its characters. She situates you in the text so you experience everything.

But I don’t make these comparisons to imply that Jesmyn Ward is derivative–far from it, in fact. Her work is imbued with a sharp ferocity, a desperate desire to survive. It is also full of love, frequently maternal in nature (especially Salvage the Bones). That is where a lot of the power of Ward’s writing can be found.

If I say that Let Us Descend doesn’t tower over Salvage the Bones or Sing, Unburied, Sing, please don’t take it as an insult. It is not. It is merely a sign that Jesmyn Ward has set an incredibly high bar for quality–and the fact that she continues to meet it is quite impressive.

This is an inordinately beautiful and blisteringly powerful book. Each page a raw nerve. Each sentence a testament to atrocities that no one should ever endure. Jesmyn Ward pulls no punches. And yet, she is able end the book in a place of hope and almost peace. I would not be surprised if she is the first to win three NBA’s!

Most everyone who reads this novel will love it, because it’s Jesmyn Ward and she’s a genius, because Dante, because it’s about the biggest story one American can tell to another American, because, wow, the author has clearly thought over and struggled over and worked over every word in this novel many many times, and it’s this last part that hung me up eventually, the sense that what I was reading might have worked better two or three or maybe even a half-dozen drafts earlier. For me the novel lacks both the stark urgency as well as the wondrous, almost magical clarity of Ward’s earlier novels. To me the novel feels like something Ward needed to write, or maybe, something she needed to pass through, like Dante, on her way to a better place.

Surrounded by spirits and the knowledge of women who came before her, Arese--called Annis--finds ways of surviving her enslavement, being sold and forcibly marched across the South, and finally, establishing a precarious existence as an escapee. Ward, as eloquent as always and enormously imaginative, creates Annis's material and spiritual worlds with detail that sharpens our understanding of Annis's journeys, the way she thinks, and how she navigates dangers of both. The incorporation of spirits with their own characters, flaws, and desires, is a clever device as well as an interesting exercise in thinking about religion and religious diversity among enslaved people in North America.

As always, Jesmyn Ward does not disappoint. This book was so beautifully written that I wanted to fly through the pages and read as slow as possible at the same time! The imagery was so vivid that I couldn't read this one before bed or I would end up having nightmares. I absolutely loved this book and cannot wait to have a copy in our library to recommend.

Thank you once again to NetGalley and the publisher for this advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review. This will appear in Goodreads and the opinions here are my own.
Jasmyn Ward is clearly a storyteller. This is a powerful and haunting work of the slavery era, or perseverance and survival in a time of our nations greatest sin. The lyrical writing will keep you entranced and the magical realism and folklore will keep you enchanted. The story is brutal and heartbreaking.
I think if you enjoyed Sing, Unburied, Sing, you will love this book. I wouldn’t be afraid of the magical realism part, as it enhances the story and moves it along, and is truly necessary to the story. We have all listened to our ancestors whispering in the wind, especially during life’s trials.
4* for the writing.

Ever since I read "Salvage the Bones" in college, Jesmyn Ward has become a household name for me. I was ecstatic to be provided an advanced reader copy of her upcoming book "Let Us Descend" from Simon & Schuster, set to release October 3, 2023. Ward's newest lyrical and heart-wrenching novel tracks a teenager, Annis, as she experiences slavery in the American South in the early 1800s. When Annis is sold south by her white owner (and father), her entire life is uprooted and she begins a journey, both physically and spiritually taxing, to New Orleans. Annis is visited by many different spiritual guides and is forced to reckon with what she is able to trust, or if she only has herself to rely on. Ward's language in this new book goes beyond the lyricism of her previous texts... this is on a whole new level! I thoroughly enjoyed how well the characters were developed throughout the text as well as the interwoven connections to Dante's "Inferno." Overall, this masterful retelling of American slavery is sure to become a classic in Ward's and our contemporary canon.

Beautiful and thoughtful, with Ward's usual expert language, this was a tough and powerful story. The characters dance off the page and my heart was full of dismay at what people can do to other people but also touched by our ability to find joy amid the hopelessness.

I received a free copy of Let Us Descend from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Ward weaves a haunting and lyrical epic. This book seems to be in conversation with Coates' The Water Dancer, except from the female perspective. Let Us Descend weaves Dante's allegory into the text and flows like a river. A beautiful addition to the historical fiction cannon.

"Let Us Descend" is told from the perspective of Annis, a young girl born of a slave mother and her white owner in the Carolinas in the 19th century. Growing up, her mother was her shield and guide, but is sold when she tries to protect her daughter. When Annis tries to find any small happiness in the life that remains for her, her owner then sells her to join the slave markets in New Orleans. We follow Annis as she makes the grueling journey with fellow slaves on foot, her eventual new owners who own rice fields in Louisiana, and must come to terms with her own heritage and history.

I was immediately pulled in by Ward's writing which is beautifully written and alluring, simultaneously lyrical and jarring within the same passages. From the beginning, Annis is a character that readers empathize and root for, despite her situation, and each obstacle and detriment that she faces is a gut punch. Neither does she shy away from the magnitude of suffering that Annis, and the many slaves around her, goes through, and it's a jarring reminder of the historical and ongoing cruelty that people have had to endured for no reason. I wasn't prepared for the elements more supernatural/spiritual aspects in the later half of the novel, as Annis confronts her ancestors and the decisions that Aza made for her, but they serve to highlight the magnitude of Annis's decisions and the gravity of rejecting her generational trauma.

This is a dark and weighty read, but one that many readers will connect with.

I should expect nothing less than brilliance from Jesmyn Ward and yet she continues to blow me away. Her prose is so lush and really allows the reader to sink fully into this story brimming with grief, suffering, but ultimately love and hope. Ward knows exactly how the ways humanity and nature intersect and creates a brilliant novel about slavery that is wildly important and impactful.

This book is amazing. It's a hard read, an unflinching look directly at the horrors of chattel slavery. It is also suffused with magical realism, the wisdom and strength of our ancestors and ourselves. All of this through Jesmyn Ward's beautiful prose.

I’m already a fan of Ward’s fiction, and this jump back in time was a story that had me completely mesmerised - there is a deftness and brevity to the writing that carries volumes of emotion and meaning, and a dizzying effect to the writing that made particularly challenging scenes for the narrator just transcend the page. Ward says just as much with what she leaves unsaid, and the deliberate decisions in the narrative are clever and considered (for example, which characters are named or how they are otherwise referenced).

I loved this, and think Ward’s writing goes from strength to strength with each release cementing her as one of my favourite writers.

(Early copy read via netgalley)

Ward's just a brilliant writer, and <i>Let Us Descend</i> is more evidence to that. The writing in this book is incredibly beautiful. Some of the lines hit you with their beauty. It's not an easy read, and the story is heartbreaking and unflinching in its portrayal of slavery. It's one of my favorite books so far this year, and I cannot wait for others to read it.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to review an ARC of this absolutely stunning novel. I'm a huge fan of Jesmyn Ward's books in general, and this one is no exception. Although it's markedly different from her other texts, which are more contemporary, this one is set in antebellum Louisiana and follows a young enslaved woman on a harrowing journey. It's beautifully told and pulls on threads of magical realism similar to Toni Morrison and Colson Whitehead.

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley and Scribner in return for an honest review.

If you've read Jesmyn Ward's novels, then you know how her writing is simultaneously gorgeous and devastating. She has previously written about how this country has failed people of color in more recent times, but in her newest work, she goes back to one of the ugliest eras of its history. In Let Us Descend, she takes us back to the South before the Civil War and gives the reader an unflinching portrait of life as an enslaved person. In her portrait of Annis, a young enslaved woman, Ward shows the suffering but also the humanity and gives the reader an idea of how it was possible for so many to continue to willingly live each day and find some hope for the future even as they were starved, beaten, and worked to death.

Another stunner of a book from Jesmyn Ward. Let Us Descend weaves together the atrocities of slavery in America with the spirits of the ancestors and the earth. Something I found so unique and compelling was that the spirits are not all “good,” they have their own motivations and desires. The main character Annis must choose which spirits to trust as she tries to forge her own path to a better life.

This powerful collection of short stories by Jesmyn Ward showcases her exceptional storytelling ability and her deep understanding of the human condition.

Each story in this anthology carries its own unique weight, unraveling complex emotions and exploring the depths of human experiences. Ward's prose is elegant and evocative, effortlessly transporting readers into the lives of her characters. The richness of her descriptions and the authenticity of her characters make them feel like old friends, with whom we share their joys, sorrows, and everything in between.

"Let Us Descend" demands to be savored and cherished. It's a testament to the power of storytelling and a reminder of the beauty and complexity of the human experience. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who appreciates masterful writing and powerful storytelling.

There is no one like Jesmyn Ward. No one else distills human emotion into something so pure and then uses that to build fiction. The way grief and survival are rendered in this book is beyond. The concept of magical thinking is given new life through Annis.
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LET US DESCEND is lush and filled with a million little gut punches. As I read I would get chills or feel my eyes welling up as I imagined the world Ward created for us. There were also parts of this book that went over my head and places I got lost in the prose, but ultimately that emotional purity kept me grounded to the text and to Annis.
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I often struggle with books about slavery, it’s not a period I like to read about (fiction or nonfiction) but I enjoyed LET US DESCEND because the ways Ward connected the characters, the landscape, and the truth of living. It’s a beautiful book.

Jesmyn Ward's newest novel is very different from her previous books, all of which I loved. 'Let Us Descend' is a historical novel with a lot of magical realism, myth, and spirituality at its core. It is a narrative of the horror of slavery told in the voice of a young female slave named Annis.

Annis is the unacknowledged daughter of a white slave owner who raped her mother. Annis and her mother are bonded by love and, after Annis's mother is sold and transported north, Annis loses hope. The only things that sustain her are her memories of her mother and the stories her mother told of Annis's legacy from her warrior grandmother who was transported on a slave ship to the Americas.

Annis calls upon spirits to help her after she is sold by her owner. She is marched in bondage, tied in ropes, from the Carolinas to New Orleans. Without food, water, or any nourishment, she is forced to go through swamps, forests, and cross rivers while shackled to the other slave women. At times, the spirits help Annis and at other times they appear to outrage her.

I felt like the book's magical realism distanced me from the personal first person narrative. The writing is beautiful and poetic but the spiritual and mythological aspects of the novel didn't work that well for me.. Jesmyn Ward is one of my favorite writers and I have read all of her previous books. 'Salvage the Bones' is one of my all-time favorite novels. I liked 'Let Us Descend' but I didn't love it.

Thank you to NetGalley, Scribner and Ms. Ward for allowing me to read this advanced review copy.