The Water Dancer

The Water Dancer is the debut novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates, published on September 24, 2019, by One World, an imprint of Random House. It is a surrealist story set in the pre–Civil War South, concerning a superhuman protagonist named Hiram Walker who possesses photographic memory, but who cannot remember his mother, and is able to transport people over long distances by using a power known as "conduction" which can fold the Earth like fabric and allows him to travel across large areas via waterways.[3]

The Water Dancer

First edition cover
Author	Ta-Nehisi Coates
Audio read by	Joe Morton[1]
Cover artist	Calida Garcia Rawles[2]
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Historical fiction, science fiction
Publisher	One World
Publication date	September 24, 2019
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	416
ISBN	978-0-399-59059-7
Dewey Decimal	813/.6
LC Class	PS3603.O17 W38 2019

The novel debuted at number one on The New York Times fiction best-seller list and was selected for the revival of Oprah's Book Club.

Background

Coates began writing the novel around 2008 and 2009. He had recently finished his first memoir, The Beautiful Struggle, and was encouraged by his agent to write fiction. At the time, Coates was extensively researching slavery and the Civil War. He was influenced by author E. L. Doctorow and "how he almost reinvented history; he made history his in a certain kind of way". Coates cited Doctorow's novels Ragtime (1975) and Billy Bathgate (1989) as early influences and recalled later reading The Waterworks. He was also influenced by his childhood love of comic books and, in general, the concept of heroes. While researching the Civil War, he was frustrated with how "a lot of the people who were held up as heroic were in fact straight-up white supremacists." Coates worked on the novel for a decade in "various degrees".[4]

Plot

Hiram Walker was born into slavery during the Antebellum South on a declining tobacco plantation in Virginia named Lockless. He is the mixed-race son of a white plantation owner and a black mother who was sold away by his father when Hiram was young. The local community consists of the enslaved ("the Tasked"); the landowners ("the Quality"); and the low-class whites. Hiram has an extraordinary photographic memory but is unable to remember his mother. However, in one instance when Hiram is driving across a bridge he suddenly has a vision of his mother dancing. When the vision ends, his carriage has fallen into the water. His (white) half brother drowns, but Hiram is transported out of the water. He learns that his miracle survival was a result of a superhuman ability he has called conduction, which transports himself and others across impossible distances. This conduction is triggered by powerful memories: those of his mother. He eventually becomes involved with the Underground Railroad. Hiram escapes to Philadelphia, where he encounters Box Brown and Jarm Logue. He eventually comes to meet a famous member of the Underground named Moses, who also has the power of Conduction. Moses is later revealed to be Harriet Tubman.

Release

On October 13, 2019, the novel debuted at number one on The New York Times Hardcover Fiction best-sellers list[5] and at number one on the Combined Print & E-Book Fiction best-sellers list.[6]

The novel was selected by Oprah Winfrey as the first book for the revival of her Oprah's Book Club on Apple TV+. She called it "one of the best books I have ever read in my entire life. Right up there in the Top 5."[7][8][9]

Reception

At the review aggregator website Book Marks, which assigns individual ratings to book reviews from mainstream literary critics, the novel received a cumulative "Positive" rating based on 41 reviews: 13 "Rave" reviews, 23 "Positive" reviews, 3 "Mixed" reviews, and 2 "Pan" reviews.[10]

Publishers Weekly gave the novel a rave review, writing, "In prose that sings and imagination that soars, Coates further cements himself as one of this generation's most important writers, tackling one of America's oldest and darkest periods with grace and inventiveness. This is bold, dazzling, and not to be missed."[11]

Kirkus Reviews gave the novel a favorable review, but felt it was "less intensely realized" than Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad (2015).[12]

Dwight Garner of The New York Times gave the novel a positive review, calling it "a jeroboam of a book, a crowd-pleasing exercise in breakneck and often occult storytelling that tonally resembles the work of Stephen King as much as it does the work of Toni Morrison, Colson Whitehead and the touchstone African-American science-fiction writer Octavia Butler."[13]

David Fear of Rolling Stone gave the novel a rave review, saying it exceeded expectations for a debut novel and writing, "What's most powerful is the way Coates enlists his notions of the fantastic, as well as his fluid prose, to probe a wound that never seems to heal. [...] There’s an urgency to his remembrance of things past that brims with authenticity, testifying to centuries of bone-deep pain. It makes The Water Dancer feel timeless and instantly canon-worthy."[14]

Constance Grady of Vox praised the "clarity of Coates's ideas and the poetry of his language" but largely panned the novel as a "mess" with monotonous characters and lacking a strong plot development to make up for it. She criticized the movement between the plot-driven and allegorical storytelling modes as "whiplash-inducing".[15]

References

1. Canfield, David (September 24, 2019). "Listen to Joe Morton read Oprah's Book Club pick The Water Dancer". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
2. de León, Concepción (February 12, 2019). "A First Look at the Cover of Ta-Nehisi Coates's Forthcoming Novel". The New York Times. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
3. Quinn, Annalisa (September 26, 2019). "In 'The Water Dancer,' Ta-Nehisi Coates Creates Magical Alternate History". NPR. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
4. Cybil (September 1, 2019). "Ta-Nehisi Coates Wades Into Literary Fiction with 'The Water Dancer'". Goodreads. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
5. "Hardcover Fiction Books - Best Sellers". The New York Times. October 13, 2019.
6. "Combined Print & E-Book Fiction - Best Sellers". The New York Times. October 13, 2019.
7. Morgan, David (September 23, 2014). "Oprah's new book club pick: Ta-Nehisi Coates' debut novel "The Water Dancer"". CBS News. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
8. Rahmanan, Anna Ben Yehuda (September 23, 2019). "Oprah Winfrey Selects 'The Water Dancer' by Ta-Nehisi Coates As First Pick For New Book Club". Forbes. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
9. Hipes, Patrick (March 25, 2019). "Apple Shows Off Original Series For First Time With Sizzle Reel – Watch". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved March 27, 2019.
10. "The Water Dancer". Book Marks. Retrieved May 7, 2020.
11. "Fiction Book Review: The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates". Publishers Weekly. June 11, 2019. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
12. "The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates". Kirkus Reviews. July 1, 2019. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
13. Garner, Dwight (September 20, 2019). "With 'The Water Dancer,' Ta-Nehisi Coates Makes His Fiction Debut". The New York Times. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
14. Fear, David (September 24, 2019). "'The Water Dancer': Ta-Nehisi Coates' American Odyssey". Rolling Stone. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
15. Grady, Constance (September 24, 2019). "Ta-Nehisi Coates is a great writer. His new book The Water Dancer is not a great novel". Vox. Retrieved October 2, 2019.