The Reaped Crop Of Dead Men Sown Into Something Beautiful

A Photo of Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped and another one of her popular fiction books Let Us Descend. Men We Reaped was an Indies Choice Nonfiction Honor Award winner and a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award nominee. Let Us Descend made Oprah’s Book Club in 2023. In general, Jesmyn Ward is a two-time national award winning author. Photo Creds: Roz Rabinowitz

Roz Rabinowitz, Junior Editor for The Powderhorn 

Jesamyn Ward sews together the bloody and beautiful story of “Men We Reaped” through poetically placed words and structure that leaves readers with blurred vision. Jesamyn Ward is a highly decorated fiction author, but “Men We Reaped” is different. It is a true story, her story. “Men We Reaped” is Ward's memoir, her conveying to the world how she grew up, with whom, and how the death of 5 young black men she shared close relationships with affected her. 

The heartbreaking personal anecdotes Ward includes paints a picture that allows the reader to become fully immersed in her story, stimulating discussion and questioning of society and racial boundaries. Throughout Ward's memoir she grieves the reality and answers to a question that is ever present in her life and community: Why Do Black Men Die So Young?

This question is a continuous theme throughout Ward's memoir. For Ward, it is her everyday life. She uses her memoir to pop the audience’s bubble of ignorance, to focus on a different life experience, and to see the larger sociological implications of where they live and how they grow up. In this book Ward does not just tell her story, she is telling the stories of others who can’t share their pain and despair, ultimately bringing light to the very real issues of the South and racism. This book is Ward’s cry for truth. Her cry to make others acknowledge that this is the truth, it’s non fiction, not just a story based on real life events. It is real life. 

Ward writes:  “All of the young Black men in my life, in my community, had been prey to these things in real life, and yet in the lives I imagined for them, I avoided the truth. I couldn’t figure out how to love my characters less. How to look squarely at what was happening to the young Black peoples I knew in the South, and to write honestly about that. How to be an Old Testament God” (70). Ward emphasizes social and economic racism through the structure of the text. 

Ward structured her memoir in a unique and significant way. Instead of typical chapters, she splits her memoir into sections around 20-40 pages. Each of these sections explains a different story, either about one of the five men who passed or her childhood or how she grew up. The sections that describe the life and death of the 5 men start with the most recent death of Roger Daniels and ends with the first death Ward experiences, of her brother, Joshua Adam Dedeaux.

 As a reader, this structure allows for an in-depth analysis into society and Ward's life. While the writing itself is meaningful, the structure emphasizes it. This structure leaves the reader with raw emotions similar to Ward’s, emotions of longing, despair, grief, and hope. This becomes significant when Ward begins to tell the death of her own brother. 

Throughout the entire book, Ward references and foreshadows her brother's death while also processing the death of many other close friends. She uses the stories of her friends and her brother to showcase the flaws of society, and personally process the grief and despair she has lived through. Her brother's story is significant and heartwarming. The connection that Ward and her brother share is special, making his death that much more difficult. His story keeps the audience invested and deepens the author's intentions and emotions. The buildup to her brother's story highlights this and makes his story that much more significant when you finally reach it. 

Though the structure of Ward's novel is unique and important by itself, the use of language and general writing of the novel allows the story to flourish. Throughout this novel, Ward uses descriptive and intense language that deepens the story. This language creates picture after picture and frame by frame makes a movie of both love and despair.

 All of the aspects of Ward's novel are special and are ultimately the reason why it is so lauded, but the use of language sticks out the most. While Ward may have written a memoir, her writing reads more like poetry. “Men We Reaped” is a love song to life or rather just how precious life actually is, a song of love and heartbreak, heartbreak when life is taken away from Ward's family and friends. Ward experienced this love and heartbreak. She watched close friend after close friend get reaped by society and has in turn sown a beautiful story that makes a lasting impact on every person who reads it.