Another periodic entry with my take on a book to share. The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a wonderful, tough but down to earth writer (Between the World and Me, an Autobiography and many more.)
In a brief overview, the book is engrossing , tragic, well researched, describing slave labor and treatment; the unwarranted torture of communities and families being harshly split asunder (still happening today) and enlightening the reader about the philosophy and methodology of conduction, working to set people free via the Underground Railroad. As usual, Coates in his narrative is brilliant, dense and requires great pause to take it all in. Read it with care, the narrative is fully packed, the characters and their treatment stays in my mind even after finishing the book.
Briefly The “surrealistic” story is set in the pre–Civil War South, “concerning a superhuman protagonist named Hiram Walker who possesses photographic memory, but who cannot remember his mother and is able to transport people over long distances by using a power known as “conduction” which can fold the Earth like fabric.” (Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Dancer).
I remember, as a kid growing up in Rochester, NY there was a house, a large colonial style house with “secrets.”
We knew it was haunted, no live person seemed to live there. We crept by it carefully but bravely. As we grew older we heard stories of the Cobb house being a refuge for the underground railroad which we understood to be a road to freedom for freed slaves in the 1800’s. (the process referred to as “conducting” in the book). We took those facts for granted never questioning the tough process of making this a reality. I thought I knew something about their methods until finishing this startling novel. How juvenile I was in my thinking. The process was thoroughly developed, people were trained without their even knowing exactly what some of their sufferings of torture, stress, uprooting and expectations were to mean. Harriet (Tubman) is quietly introduced as she played her huge role in the stories of rescue.
Reading this book takes concentration, perseverance, a vivid and visual imagination and will “haunt” the reader after its completion.
Further reading: The Underground Railroad by, Colson White and other titles obythis author.
The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier. Underground Railroad by William Still.