The Water Dancer

The Water Dancer

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates is well known for his non-fiction & commentary on issues of race, including the short & powerful book Between the World and Me along with numerous well-crafted long pieces for The Atlantic.

His first fictional novel, The Water Dancer, is bewitchingly written and follows the protagonist, Hiram, starting with his childhood as a slave on a Virginian plantation called Lockless. We learn that Hiram has an otherworldly memory, with the exception of remembering his mother. The reader also learns that Hiram’s father is the white owner of the struggling Lockless, and this strained relationship of the two reflects larger themes throughout the story.

The Water Dancer combines historical fiction with the supernatural, creating a general feeling of profundity followed by some disappointment as the plot and subplots are bogged down and drag out past their due. But what the book lacks in plot, it makes up for with character development.

Coates creates characters like humans—even the villains are nuanced and the reader must consider the complexities of the characters which speak to larger racial themes. There is the gruff but caring Athena who helped raise Hiram, the reckless Maynard who is Hiram’s “responsibility” and white half-brother, the well-intentioned but harm-causing white abolitionist Corrine Quinn, the kind but fierce White brothers who fled slavery and now work for the Underground, and many others. Sophia is perhaps the most interesting character. She may be Hiram’s love interest secondly, but she is fiercely independent and her character steers the story in unexpected directions while also reflecting the incredible traumas of slavery.

Coates is an incredible writer, but the prose in this fictional work can be tedious at times. That being said, The Water Dancer is certainly worth the read (or listen) with the expectation of slow, but poetic pacing.

“I had dreams back then. Big dumb dreams. Dead and gone.” “And what do you dream of now?” she asked. “After what I just came up from?” I said. “Breathing. I just dream of breathing.”