The Water Dancer - Ta-Nehisi Coates

When I first heard that Ta-Nehisi Coates was going to write a novel, I was hopeful that his plot and storytelling could keep up with the beauty and fully alive quality of his narration. I wasn't disappointed. In The Water Dancer, Coates tells the story of Hiram Walker. A slave born on the Walker Plantation in Elm County, Virginia at the beginning of the end of prosperity for the county. Son of his owner, born of the rape of his mother, Hiram is intelligent and equipped with a photographic memory.

It is the hope of his father that he will help his half-brother, Maynard, who has become a symbol of the lazy corruption that has overtaken the white slave-owning class ("quality" in Coates language). Maynard is slovenly, lazy, and ignorant. And when both men are thrown into the river, Hiram's special ability to "conduct" or transport himself elsewhere brings him several miles inland to his home. This gift of conduction is known to be possessed by only one person, Moses, Harriet Tubman herself.

Bereft of his life, and knowing he must seek change, Hiram runs and is caught. And the brutality of his circumstances worsens, until he is plucked out and given a position on the Underground. The complexity of the Underground was fascinating and Hiram's discomfort with his own place in the world was a great exploration on the limits of our own autonomy. Hiram escapes slavery but becomes beholden to the Underground because the very color of his skin puts him in peril.

I felt that the end of the book came a little abruptly given the unhurried cadence of the entire story. What happened to Hiram after the closing pages is something I've been wondering about for days even after finishing the story. Because the narration is done past tense, we know that Hiram grows to be old and live a long life, but he only hints at specifics and it's largely unknown what that long life entails. But perhaps not wanting the story to end is not such a bad way to end it. 

4/5 Stars