“Sing, Unburied, Sing,” 2nd National Book Award novel by Jesmyn Ward (post 4): Leonie and JoJo are inadvertently introduced as having multiple personality

“Chemical Figment”?

“Last night, he [her deceased older brother named Given] smiled at me [Leonie], this Given-not-Given, this Given that’s been dead fifteen years now, this Given that came to me every time I snorted a line, every time I popped a pill. He sat in one of the two empty chairs at the table with us [Leonie and her female friend, Misty], he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. He was watching me, like always…

“Given rubbed the dome of his shaved head, and I saw other differences between the living and this chemical figment. Given-not-Given didn’t breathe right. He never breathed at all…

“I shrugged. Given-not-Given shrugs…

“ ‘Given,’ I said. More like a whisper than anything, and Given leaned forward to hear me. Slid his hand across the table, his big-knuckled, slim-boned hand, toward mine. Like he wanted to support me. Like he could be flesh and blood. Like he could grab my hand and lead me out of there. Like we could go home.

“Misty [said], ‘I ain’t a expert or nothing, but I’m pretty sure you ain’t supposed to be seeing nothing on this shit…Acid, yeah,’ she continued. ‘Maybe even meth. But this? No.’ 

“Given-not-Given frowned, mimicked her [Misty’s] girly hair lip, and mouthed: What the fuck does she know? His left hand was still on the table… 

“Given-not-Given stayed with me for the rest of the night at Misty’s. He even followed me out to the car and climbed into the passenger seat, right through the door” (1, pp. 34-44).

Pre-Drugs, Since Childhood

“When I was twelve [says Leonie], the midwife Marie-Therese” was “asking me what I thought each of the bundles of dried plants did. And I looked at them, and knew, so I told her: This one for helping the afterbirth come, this one for slowing the bleeding, this one for helping the pain, this one for bringing the milk down. It was like someone was humming in my ear, telling me they purpose. Right there, she told me I had the seed of a gift…

“Marie-Therese herself could hear…a multitude of voices…And when she explained it like that, I realized I had been hearing voices, too” (1, pp. 39-41).

Jojo’s Voices

Jojo (Joseph), Leonie’s thirteen-year-old son, seems to know what the barnyard animals are thinking: “I squatted in the grass, watching them, thinking I could almost hear them talk to me, that I could hear them communicate…[he gives examples]…But it scared me to understand them, to hear them…But it was impossible to not hear the animals, because I looked at them and understood, instantly…(1, pp. 14-15).

In the same way that Leonie, when she was twelve, knew what each bundle of dried plant did (because voices told her), Jojo evidently has an alternate personality who interprets what the animals are thinking and feeling, and then puts the result in Jojo’s mind as if the thought just came to him from nowhere. 

Comment

In these first two chapters, Jojo and Leonie have what the novel treats as amusing supernatural experiences. People say that Leonie may have a “gift” that runs in the family. But what the novel is describing are the kinds of voices, visions, and anonymous influences from behind-the-scenes that are seen in multiple personality.

1. Jesmyn Ward. Sing, Unburied, Sing. New York, Scribner, 2017.