The Water Dancer
Oprah Winfrey selected this lyrical, imaginative novel for her Book Club’s revival, and it is an impressive work in the vein of Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. Hiram Walker is a privileged slave in antebellum Virginia, educated by his master/father and promised a career managing the estate at his half-brother’s side. A carriage accident sends “Hi” into a river, where he wakes on the bank with no memory of how he got there. As his father’s sole surviving son, Hi feels torn between loyalty to his own kind and his admiration for the ingenuity that tamed the American wilderness. That ambivalence survives his escape, capture and torture, and is put to use as he joins the Underground as a soldier in an intricate form of psychological warfare against Virginia’s white elite, called upon by no less than “Moses” (Harriet Tubman) to use his unique gifts in the service of this secret war.
Hi’s gift is called “Conduction” by his Underground mentors—the combined mental, physical, and leadership skills needed to oversee the kind of espionage to spirit runaway slaves to Northern freedom. There are also hints that the power of Conduction is supernatural—an ability, triggered by the desire for freedom and the memory of loss, to move instantaneously from one location to the next. This is where Coates’ narrative departs from a formulaic treatment of the struggles of African-American slaves; in lovely, emotional prose, he creates an unforgettable narrator for a moving story of how the “Tasked” (as they are called in this novel) come to terms in diverse ways with the crimes committed against them. As one of the select few who is called to do more than merely survive, Hi’s voice overflows with love and compassion for both slave and master, and gives the reader an entirely new context for a familiar narrative.
