Salvage the Bones

2011 National Book Award for Fiction winner

Esch's father is becoming more worried as a storm approaches the Gulf of Mexico, endangering the seaside hamlet of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. He is a heavy drinker who is generally uninvolved and doesn't care about anything else. Esch is stockpiling food with her three brothers, but not much is left over. Esch, who is fourteen and pregnant, has been unable to control her eating habits lately. While brothers Randall and Junior attempt to make their mark in a household that values playtime over discipline, her brother Skeetah is surreptitiously gathering leftovers for his beloved pitbull's next litter, killing each one in the mud. The memorable family at the center of the book—motherless children who give as much of themselves as they can to one other, protecting and caring when love is scarce—pulls itself up to battle for another day as the twelve days that make up the structure of the novel surrender to the last day and Hurricane Katrina. "Salvage the Bones" is a powerful poem that is revelatory, authentic, and packed with poetry that takes a painful look at the harsh, lonely, and constricting reality of rural poverty.