Jonathan Snipes

I haven't read a great adult mermaid novel in.... forever. The story was unique, dark, and captivating; although the plot was quite slow at time. Inspired by the pregnant African slaves who were thrown overboard to die on their way to America for being "disruptive" cargo; the authors wondered what happened to their unborn babies who were already breathing underwater in their mother's womb? Inspired may not be the right word; but that horrible back story helped mold this book into what it is. show more Yetu, an underwater being tasked with storing the entire history of her people, is barely hanging on. The history of the wajinru is a violent and bloody one and it wants to claw it's way out of Yetu. The wajinru are descended from the pregnant slave woman, yet that traumatic history is too much for their people to process so the historian (Yetu) must house all that painful history and bear the burden for all. Yetu must find a way to live with those truths or pass them onto others without breaking tradition. Dark, slow at times, but unique and enchanting! show less

[S]he didn't mind the unknowing because it came with such calm, such a freedom from the pain.

This is a novella based on a Clipping. song; the song was (to quote myself) "about an underwater race made up of the children of pregnant African women thrown off slave ships." I expected the novella to be about the original founding of the underwater species; to my surprise, it was about one of their descendants, an historian who carries her civilization's traumatic memories so everyone else can be show more spared them. (Some of the founding is filled in in flashback, but it's not the focus.) I expected the novella to be a mediocre Tor.comesque thing; to my surprise, it was a really powerful meditation on the pain of history versus the bliss of ignorance, and the need to reach out and embrace the unfamiliar. I will have to look out for more by Rivers Solomon. show less

What do I even say about this book? It’s magical, heartwrenching, thoughtful, provoking, and reads with just enough adventure that the strong themes don’t become overwhelming and obvious. We are sent deep below the waves, to the kingdom of the wajinru, a race of mer-people who are the offspring of pregnant slave women thrown overboard during transit to the Americas. From this violent and unexpected beginning the wajinru have risen to become a unique society far separated from the human show more race, and yet they still face similar troubles. Their major difference (besides the fact that they are more communal, having taken on the characteristics of sea creatures) is that their collective memory of their history is kept by only one wajinru - the historian. The story we read is led by one of their historians, Yetu, and through Yetu’s rebellion against her role we explore themes of collective suffering, historical remembrance, and individuality. This story is clearly a poignant commentary on the slave trade, and its longstanding emotional and intellectual impact on the Black population, but told through this unexpected lens we are given new perspectives. Throughout the story we see pain, so much pain, through Yetu’s suffering as carrier of the wajinru’s painful and violent history, but we also see hope spring through her pain. Yetu abandons the annual remembrance ceremony in the hope that she will be able to lessen her own suffering and become herself once again, leaving her people to suffer in her stead. And yet, out of her act of selfishness we see the wajinru grow and accept that their method of curbing the pain in short term does nothing towards ultimately healing. We are left not knowing how the wajinru (and Yetu) carry out the rest of their days, but the message of growth leaves us with a feeling of hope towards the future. The novel may be pegged as fantasy by some, but its message is as strong as anything I’ve read and is absolutely poised to become a seminal novel in the years to come. show less

“The Remembrance took more than it gave. It required she remember and relive the wajinru’s entire history all at once. Not just that, she had to put order and meaning to the events, so that the others could understand. She had to help them open their minds so they could relive the past too. It was a painful process.”

Yetu is a historian. She is a part of the wajinru, a race of merfolk who live in the deep. They are descended from pregnant women thrown overboard during the slave trade. show more As historian, Yetu collects painful memories of her people’s past, which she harbors inside until the annual ceremony called the Remembrance. Historians are charged with stifling their own wants and needs in order to fulfill this important role in the community.

This book is a mix of fantasy, literary fiction, and folklore. Yetu is a vessel for storing memories, and she represents both the importance of memory (and by inference, history) as well as the manner in which these become diluted over time. Yetu comes into contact with the “two-legs,” as they call the human surface dwellers, and she realizes that her people’s environment is threatened by their actions.

This story is creatively and beautifully written. Solomon’s prose is elegant and lyrical. Though it is short (166 pages), it works on multiple levels – oral history, folk tale, legacy of slavery, environmental damage, and generational trauma. I particularly enjoyed the exploration of the dichotomy of memory. Do not miss the Afterword, which describes the mixture of original sources that resulted in this poetic and powerful novel.

4.5 show less