To step into his new role as a man, Jojo tries to help his grandfather, Pop, kill a goat, but he is sickened by the slaughter.

When Leonie arrives at the house of a white woman, Jojo finds a man cooking meth.

Eventually, they pull over to the house of Al, Michael's lawyer, where Leonie cooks the blackberry leaves.

When Jojo reaches into his pocket to grab the gris-gris bag Pop gave him, the officer pulls his gun on him.

The girl then reported this incident, so the local white population decided to seek revenge by lynching Blue.

Pop knew that the white men wouldn't make a distinction between Blue and Richie.

Jojo and Pop run in and Leonie jumps into action and begins saying the litany to summon Maman Brigitte.

The story starts on his thirteenth birthday at his maternal grandparents' house in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi.

Throughout the book, Jojo often acts as a parent to his younger sister Kayla because his mother, Leonie, is not always present.

Leonie and Michael previously had plans to move to California together which were interrupted by the birth of Jojo, creating a rift between the two.

She is also jealous of her children's relationship because it reminds her of the brother she lost too early in life and her failures as a mother, since Jojo takes on more of her parental role.

Pop spent some time in Parchman prison when he was young and developed a "care giver" relationship with another inmate, Richie.

Mam is sick with cancer when the novel begins and becomes bedridden from chemotherapy treatments, which ultimately forces Leonie to step up as a motherly figure.

Misty joins Leonie on a road trip to Parchman prison to pick up Michael after his release.

At the beginning of the novel, he is incarcerated in the Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm, for drug trafficking.

[3] Given is Leonie's older brother who was murdered on a hunting trip by Michael's cousin when he was a senior in high school.

Given played football in high school and was thought to have a promising college athletic career ahead of him.

Richie tried to escape later with an inmate named Blue, who was skinned and killed during their failed attempt.

She inhospitably welcomes Michael, Leonie, Jojo, and Kayla into her home in an effort to salvage her relationship with her son, but will not stand up to her husband.

[4] A dead boy, Richie, is one of the narrators, and other ghosts are found throughout the novel as they tie the past to the present and future.

[5] Likewise, Mam and Pop project a belief in spirituality through gris-gris bags, which contain objects of nature that are assumed to administer power for humans.

Parchman has been described as “the quintessential penal farm, the closest thing to slavery that survived the civil war.”[7] Even though the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, it created a loophole that allowed for the continued exploitation of incarcerated people, who were then and now, disproportionately Black.

[8] Both Pop (River) and Richie's stories share the haunting reality of this unjust recreation of slavery within Southern America.

Though Michael appears to love Leonie despite their differing skin colors, his family sternly disapproves of the life he leads.

Michael's father, Big Joseph, showcases the lingering tensions of white supremacy in the South.

In the same manner, Big Joseph rejects his own son, Michael, for defying this tradition with his bi-racial children.

This theme of human-animal relationships is first introduced in the opening scene as Jojo and Pop kill a goat, and it is also reflected throughout the novel as characters like Blue are slaughtered in the same way an animal might be.

Jojo frequently mentions being thirsty while he, Kayla, Leonie, and Misty drive to Parchman to get his father.

[15][16] Reviewing the novel for The Washington Post, Ron Charles compared it to George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo and Toni Morrison's Beloved;[17] at NPR, Annalisa Quinn found it "reminiscent of As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner.

It is also acclaimed as one of the best novels of the year by the New Statesman,[21] the Financial Times,[22] and BBC,[23] all of which are located in London.