Kamal Morgan
Contributing Writer
Oprah’s annual book club presented their selection this past September: Ta-Nehisi Coates’The Water Dancer. This is Coates’ first novel and his fourth book overall. His book, Between the World and Me won the National Book award for nonfiction in 2015 and was a finalist for 2016 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.
The story takes place in the 18th century where we meet the protagonist Hiriam Walker, who is the offspring of his slave mother and his white master. It starts off as he is driving his half-brother in a carriage, and gets into an accident off a bridge known for transporting slaves that are sold off plantations. He nearly drowns but is rescued by a supernatural power where he is ‘conducted’ off the river and onto land. This near-death experience leads him to want to escape from the watch of his slave master-fa- ther and become a free man.
The Water Dancer is not just a story about a man’s attempt to gain freedom during slav- ery. It does not succumb to the pleas of those who want to show the cruelty and vio- lence of antebellum America where black bodies were not just property, but flesh to be distributed and dispensed of when convenient. Coates creates a story that focuses on black love; how slavery was not just about the symbols that are associated with slavery, but the rupture of the black family in the process. Coates did not use the traditional ‘master’ and ‘slave’ titles, but replaced them with the Quality (master) and the Tasked (slaves) to create a new narrative where the slave has a voice and they can define and give a human value to themselves.
The status of slavery made black people cherish the love of family, their connections with one anoth- er and the memories they created from it. Survival was the goal, but freedom meant nothing without the emotional connection of family. In this book, Coates repeatedly shows how, when the Tasked escaped from slavery they were still not satisfied. Their bodies were freed, but their family still lay in bondage. Those who were freed still felt a suppressed agony because they would never feel the warmth of their partners and children.
Coates brings a human angle that many forget exists into the neo-slave narrative. Our family and the memories we make with them is what keeps us alive ev- ery day. This is the power which Coates wants his readers to ac- knowledge when we think about slavery and its effects on us. It is not just about the cruelty that was endured, but how the power of love has led black people to survive in an oppressive anti- black America and how we will continue to defy the odds no matter the circumstances.