Where the Line Bleeds

Jesmyn Ward's debut novel, Where the Line Bleeds (2008), follows fraternal twin boys struggling to survive and make a living in the rural and desolate forests of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, where there are few job prospects, and everyone knows everyone else's business. The boys, though bonded by their shared troubled childhood and their care for their sick grandmother, take diverging paths as the book moves toward its climax.

Joshua and Christophe Delisle, twin brothers who have been inseparable since childhood, prepare to jump into a muddy river. Despite the tension and the drama of the moment, neither of the boys wants to kill himself – instead, they just want to cool off from the grueling Mississippi heat. The boys were urged to jump off the bridge by their older cousin, Dunny, who will play a key role in the story and who tells the boys that it will be a suitable celebration for their high school graduation, which the family will attend later that day.

Joshua and Christophe are confused by the trajectory of their lives after high school. At their graduation, their Uncle Eze asks if either of them is planning to attend college, and the boys laugh, telling him that they should be thankful they managed to graduate from high school. Both boys realize that their prospects, living in rural Mississippi, are slim, but they are bound to the area by a sense of duty to their family history and for their love of Ma-mee, their grandmother who is sick. Ma-mee has raised the boys since their no-good mother, Cille, who floats in and out of the picture, abandoned them at age five. The boys are aware of the troubles that can come from remaining in the area – their father, a homeless drug addict whom they call Sandman, has never left the Gulf Coast, haunting the boys with his occasional appearances in the story – but they remain, for better or for worse.



Joshua and Christophe fill out applications to work at the docks, but the novel becomes more troubled when only Joshua gets the job. Suddenly, Joshua has money to spare, a career, a girlfriend, and their mother Cille's attention, while Christophe has been left with nothing. Unsure where else to turn, Christophe realizes that the only opportunity he has to make a name for himself and to make a living is to start selling drugs. His cousin, Dunny, reassures him that he would never leave him high and dry, and with Dunny's guidance, Christophe begins to sell small amounts of marijuana, giving him even more pocket cash than Joshua, but a continual sense of shame. While Joshua can contribute to the family finances, all Christophe can manage to do is slip wads of illicit cash into his grandmother's purse, hoping that it eases her worries.

Joshua and Christophe continue to grow apart as tensions between them build. Joshua's life is, in Christophe's eyes, picture perfect. He has a beautiful girlfriend, a legitimate career, and the attention of their mother, which Christophe has always wanted. Christophe continues increasingly to hide himself, and the boys spend less time together, beginning to agree only on their shared love for their Ma-mee and their hatred of their father, Sandman. Christophe, however, begins to see Sandman increasingly as Dunny convinces him that he should start selling harder drugs, to make more cash. Though Christophe is nervous about the repercussions of getting into more dangerous narcotics, he also knows that it is his only hope to compete with Joshua's success, potentially winning over their mother. Though the boys both struggle, they make the decision to remain close despite their differences and the different trajectories of their lives. The book closes with a note about their survival in difficult circumstances and the realization that they will be okay, despite the odds working against them.

Jesmyn Ward is an American author from DeLisle, Mississippi, and a professor of English at Tulane University. She is the author of a number of novels, including Salvage the Bones, Men We Reaped, and her most recent, Sing Unburied, Sing. She is also the editor of a collection of essays on race and black culture, entitled The Fire This Time. She is the winner of an Ainsfield Book Award, and two National Book Awards – one for Salvage the Bones in 2011 and another for Sing Unburied Sing in 2017. She is dedicated to telling stories about race, poverty, family, and life in the rural South, where she was raised. She attended Stanford University and the University of Michigan.