But it is the strength of his memories that kindles a special inner gift: the magic of conduction.

“Hiram Walker, the son of a Black woman and her white master, is born into slavery in this rendering of life in antebellum Virginia. Norris Rettiger, Lemuria Bookstore, Jackson, MS Winter 2020 Reading Group Indie Next List Written with poignancy and humanity, The Water Dancer left me stunned but clear-headed, like I had just been woken up from a deep, dream-filled sleep.” Coates writes with an honesty that can only come from a sublime, even spiritual, understanding of the souls of the white man and the black man in America. Over 400 pages I have cried, I have laughed, I have been educated, and I have been enlightened.

The Water Dancer led me on a journey up and down the landscape of American slavery with a narrative that feels like The Book of Exodus meets, well, Ta-Nehisi Coates. (Sept.“Ta-Nehisi Coates understands something big and he understands it better than anyone else right now. This is bold, dazzling, and not to be missed.

In prose that sings and imagination that soars, Coates further cements himself as one of this generation’s most important writers, tackling one of America’s oldest and darkest periods with grace and inventiveness. Valued for his literacy and for the magical skill the Underground believes he possesses, Hiram comes to learn that the fight for freedom comes with its own sacrifices and restrictions. After he wakes up, mysteriously saved even as Maynard dies, Hiram yearns for a life beyond “the unending night of slavery.” But when his plans to escape with Sophia, the woman he loves, are dashed by betrayal and violence, Hiram is inducted into the Underground, the secret network of agents working to liberate slaves. Deep in the river, Hiram is barraged with visions of his ancestors, and finally a woman water-dancing, whom he recognizes as his mother. When the novel opens, Hiram is 19, and he and Maynard are on their way back to Lockless when the bridge they’re traveling over collapses. Born to Rose and Howell Walker, master and owner of Lockless, the land Hiram works, Hiram is called up at age 12 to the house to serve Maynard, his half-brother. Born on a Virginia plantation, he realizes at five that he has a photographic recall-except where it concerns his mother, Rose, who was sold and whom he can only reconstruct through what others tell him. Coates ( We Were Eight Years in Power) makes his ambitious fiction debut with this wonderful novel that follows Hiram Walker, a boy with an extraordinary memory.

The water dancer book review