Search
Log in
  • Home

  • Categories

  • Audiobooks

  • E-books

  • For kids

  • Top lists

  • Help

  • Download app

  • Use campaign code

  • Redeem gift card

  • Try free now
  • Log in
  • Language

    🇩🇰 Danmark

    • DK
    • EN

    🇧🇪 Belgique

    • FR
    • EN

    🇩🇪 Deutschland

    • DE
    • EN

    🇪🇸 España

    • ES
    • EN

    🇫🇷 France

    • FR
    • EN

    🇳🇱 Nederland

    • NL
    • EN

    🇳🇴 Norge

    • NO
    • EN

    🇦🇹 Österreich

    • AT
    • EN

    🇨🇭 Schweiz

    • DE
    • EN

    🇫🇮 Suomi

    • FI
    • EN

    🇸🇪 Sverige

    • SE
    • EN

Read and listen for free for 14 days!

Cancel anytime

Try free now
3.7(3)

Where the Line Bleeds : A Novel

The first novel from National Book Award winner and author of Sing, Unburied, Sing Jesmyn Ward, a timeless Southern fable of brotherly love and familial conflict—“a lyrical yet clear-eyed portrait of a rural South and an African American reality that are rarely depicted” (The Boston Globe).

Where the Line Bleeds is Jesmyn Ward’s gorgeous first novel and the first of three novels set in Bois Sauvage—followed by Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing—comprising a loose trilogy about small town sourthern family life. Described as “starkly beautiful” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), “fearless” (Essence), and “emotionally honest” (The Dallas Morning News), it was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award.

Joshua and Christophe are twins, raised by a blind grandmother and a large extended family in rural Bois Sauvage, on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. They’ve just finished high school and need to find jobs, but after Katrina, it’s not easy. Joshua gets work on the docks, but Christophe’s not so lucky and starts to sell drugs. Christophe’s downward spiral is accelerated first by crack, then by the reappearance of the twins’ parents: Cille, who left for a better job, and Sandman, a dangerous addict. Sandman taunts Christophe, eventually provoking a shocking confrontation that will ultimately damn or save both twins.

Where the Line Bleeds takes place over the course of a single, life-changing summer. It is a delicate and closely observed portrait of fraternal love and strife, of the relentless grind of poverty, of the toll of addiction on a family, and of the bonds that can sustain or torment us. Bois Sauvage, based on Ward’s own hometown, is a character in its own right, as stiflingly hot and as rich with history as it is bereft of opportunity. Ward’s “lushly descriptive prose…and her prodigious talent and fearless portrayal of a world too often overlooked” (Essence) make this novel an essential addition to her incredible body of work.


Author:

  • Jesmyn Ward

Format:

  • E-book

Duration:

  • 220 pages

Language:

English


More by Jesmyn Ward

Skip the list
  1. Fight of the Century : Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases

    Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman

    audiobookbook
  2. Syng, levende og døde, syng

    Jesmyn Ward

    audiobookbook
  3. I den blinda världens djup

    Jesmyn Ward

    book
  4. Let Us Descend : A Novel

    Jesmyn Ward

    audiobookbook
  5. Mænd vi høstede

    Jesmyn Ward

    audiobookbook
  6. Navigate Your Stars

    Jesmyn Ward

    audiobook
  7. Rädda varje spillra

    Jesmyn Ward

    book
  8. Sing, Unburied, Sing : A Novel

    Jesmyn Ward

    audiobookbook
  9. De dödas sång

    Jesmyn Ward

    book
  10. The Fire This Time : A New Generation Speaks about Race

    Jesmyn Ward

    book
  11. Hvad reddes kan

    Jesmyn Ward

    audiobookbook

Bois Sauvage Series

Skip the list
  1. Lily and the Octopus

    Steven Rowley

    audiobookbook
  2. Sing, Unburied, Sing : A Novel

    Jesmyn Ward

    audiobookbook

Others have also read

Skip the list
  1. Cowboys and Indians

    Joseph O'Connor

    audiobook
  2. The Complete and Original Norwegian Folktales of Asbjørnsen and Moe

    Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, Jørgen Moe

    audiobook
  3. The Tensorate Series : 3 Novellas

    Neon Yang

    audiobook
  4. The Language of Food : "Mouth-watering and sensuous, a real feast for the imagination" BRIDGET COLLINS

    Annabel Abbs

    audiobook
  5. The Orchard : A Novel

    David Hopen

    audiobook
  6. In the Vanishers’ Palace

    Aliette de Bodard

    audiobook
  7. The Song of the Jade Lily : A Novel

    Kirsty Manning

    audiobook
  8. The Court Dancer

    Kyung-Sook Shin

    audiobook
  9. Luckenbooth

    Jenni Fagan

    audiobook
  10. The Black Tides of Heaven

    Neon Yang

    audiobook
  11. All's Well

    Mona Awad

    audiobook
  12. Never Coming Home

    Hannah Mary McKinnon

    audiobook

  • 13 books

    Jesmyn Ward

    Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the historic winner—first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.

    Read more

Help and contact


About us

  • Our story
  • Career
  • Press
  • Accessibility
  • Partner with us
  • Investor relations
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Explore

  • Categories
  • Audiobooks
  • E-books
  • Magazines
  • For kids
  • Top lists

Popular categories

  • Crime
  • Biographies and reportage
  • Fiction
  • Feel-good and romance
  • Personal development
  • Children's books
  • True stories
  • Sleep and relaxation

Nextory

Copyright © 2025 Nextory AB

Privacy Policy · Terms ·
Excellent4.3 out of 5