The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates *****

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates reminded me of Fredrick Douglass by David W Blight, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It is set in the pre-Civil War south and concerns the lives of the enslaved people. With a mixture of history and fantasy Coates tells the story of Hiram Walker, son of Howell Walker, the plantation owner, and Rose, who was sold away when Hiram was nine.

The story unfolds in three parts: growing up on the plantation, living as a free man in Philadelphia, and returning south. A view of plantation life with reasons to leave and to stay.

Hiram Walker’s life is divided between the fact that he is enslaved and the privileges he receives because his father owns the plantation. He also has two superpowers. He can remember everything from people and stories to playing card and conversations. He also has the power of CONDUCTION (a.k.a. teleportation), though this capability is more difficult to access and control.

His circumstances give him empathy for the Tasked (the enslaved workers) and the Quality (the masters). The result is a story with both sides represented. The third class in this society is the Low whites, “a degraded and downtrodden nation enduring the boot of the Quality, solely for the right to put a boot of their own to the Tasked.” Hiram Walker had little compassion for the Low whites, but he understood the weakness of the Quality. “My father, like all the masters, built an entire apparatus to disguise this weakness, to hide how prostrate they truly were.”

Both this book and Uncle Tom’s Cabin feature the horror and brutality of breaking up families.

Both this book and The Underground Railroad use fantasy to represent the voyages of people escaping the south.

A powerful and subtle view of plantation life pre-civil war.

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