Coates's first novel is brutal and beautifully written look at the harsh world of a antebellum Virginia plantation from the point of view of a young man who has a rare view of the master's family and his fellow enslaved.
From the beginning we know something of main character Hiram Walker's gift, or rather, his gifts. While everyone, either among the "Tasked" or the "Quality" (as the enslaved and the white masters are referred to in this novel) on the plantation oknows of Hiram's prodigious memory, neither the characters nor the reader learn the true nature nor extent of the water-dancer's gifts for a while. Hiram, the not-quite acknowledged son of the master of the plantation, is offered a life less harsh than many of his fellow "Tasked," but as he learns more about his mother, his grandmother, and the horrors visited on those enslaved around him, he decides to use his gifts and risk his life in a battle for his own freedom and the freedom of those he loves.The writing, as with all of Coates's writing, is phenomenal and the characters are luminous.. This was my favorite novel of 2019.
While several reviewers have compared The Water Dancer to Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad (favorably so) and the author himself cites Toni Morrison (among others) as an influence, you can also feel thematic links to Octavia Butler's classic novel Kindred, Esi Edugyan's Washington Black, and also to Walter Mosley's underrated 47.
