Wayétu Moore

This fictional origin story for the nation of Liberia brings together three characters with unique talents. Gbessa, born with red hair in the West African village of Lai, is considered to be cursed and ostracized. June Dey is born into slavery in Virginia under miraculous circumstances and develops superhuman strength. Norman Aragon is the child of an enslaved woman and a white British slaveholder who gains an ability to fade from sight. All three end up in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia show more founded by the American Colonization Society to resettle freed Black people. The summary makes it sound like a comic book superhero team, but the book is more nuanced than that. The book works well as an examination of the ongoing trauma of slavery, Liberia's intricate ties with the United States, and the interaction of the American Blacks with the indigenous people of that part of Africa. show less

I wasn't sure how she would make the parts fit together, and then I got to the last section and it all worked, especially the last paragraphs. It was so suspenseful and tense at times. I loved her use of the child's perspective -- so strong in images. It was agonizing to read in many ways. And yet so joyful. I want to re-read.

This was a start but was well worth the effort to finish it. Beginning in the bush country in a place in Africa that would become Liberia, Gbessa is born with a curse. She is isolated from her people and eventually sent away. She is bitten by a poisonous snake but does not die. The beginning chapter is hard to read mainly due to the strange syntax of sentences and just never sure what is real and what is not.

The second part is the story of a baby boy born on the Emerson plantation in show more Virginia. His mother named him "June" because that's when she first felt him move in her and Dey after his father. She did not want her child named Emerson. The mother dies, June is known as Moses and develops an amazing strength. As a grown man, June escapes the plantation and eventually finds himself on a ship returning to Africa. The American Colonization Society is setting up a country for returned slaves.

In Jamaica, a baby is born to a white man and a maroon mother. (Africans who had escaped slavery and established their own communities). Norman Aragon develops the ability to become invisible as his mother does. His mother teaches him about the earth, herbs, etc. and after the death of both the father and mother, Norman wants to return to the land of his mother's birth, Africa.

In Africa, the three meet and each becomes aware of the others' skills. Gbessa takes most of the story as she becomes a maid in the household of free blacks in Monrovia. These blacks, who were once slaves, have become the leaders of the community and developed a very rigid social ladder looking down on the indigenous peoples. Gbessa eventually marries a strong man who is a leader and finds herself torn between the "civilized and Christian" Blacks and the natives in the bush.

This is a complicated story and not particularly easy to read. I've never been a fan of mystical realist, but this story drew me in especially in the second half of the book. The writing is excellent although I had to go back often to re read past chapters. Probably my weakness, not the book. Overall, I liked it a lot. show less

It would be difficult for any reader of great fiction to not be thoroughly enchanted, as I was, by Wayetu Moore’s brilliant telling of Liberia’s 19th century origins. Told through the lives of three, unforgettable characters: a red-headed Vai woman thought to be a witch, and who is left in the jungle to die, but miraculously survives; a young, English-speaking, mulatto man from Jamaica, who seems to be able to disappear and reappear at will; and a young male kitchen slave from a Virginia show more plantation, who seems to have superhuman strength. The riveting stories of each of these three very different people will eventually bring the three together in Africa—in the land destined to become Liberia.

Moore’s creative blend of fiction and history is electric and it sings to the reader. It carries us from beginning to end, reluctant to let us go at any time in between. This is great, entertaining and immersive storytelling. show less