The Water Dancer - by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Water Dancer is a captivating and imaginative novel that explores the psychological effects of slavery on individuals and families.

Written by the acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates, this book delves into the atrocities inflicted on generations of women, men, and children - the violent and capricious separation of families - and their war to simply make lives with the people they loved. With a unique blend of historical fiction, magical realism, and adventure, The Water Dancer follows the journey of Hiram Walker, a young man born into bondage who sets out to rescue his family from the only home he's ever known.

This gripping tale is full of dense, evocative descriptions that bring the vanished world of slavery to life, and its supernatural elements are integral to the story, representing something larger and more profound than realism could contain. The Water Dancer is a work of both staggering imagination and rich historical significance, and it extends the idea of the gifts of the disenfranchised to include a kind of superpower.

With an unambiguous narrative ambition and a bracing realism that's overcome by the mist of fantasy, this novel is a jeroboam of a book, a crowd-pleasing exercise in breakneck and often occult storytelling that tonally resembles the work of Stephen King as much as it does the work of Toni Morrison, Colson Whitehead, and Octavia Butler. The author's expert craftsmanship and meticulous attention to detail bring this story to life in a way that's both tender and poignant, offering a temporary fantasy of an alternate history where enslaved people could escape their bondage through the power of memory.

With its timeless and instantly canon-worthy narrative, The Water Dancer is a novel that will leave readers with a newfound appreciation for the resilience and strength of those who have come before us.