The Deep by Rivers Solomon with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes
Goodreads Summary: Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.
Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.
My Review: Truthfully, I don’t know where to begin on my feelings about The Deep. This is perhaps the first time I’ve read a novella where I felt the plot was effectively constructed to fit this particular narrative structure. Where other novellas leave me with questions about the world-building and wanting more from the character arcs, Solomon crafts a world that feels whole and lived-in.
One way they achieves this is by providing various points of view from the past and presence. We learn about how the Wajinru - these mermaid-esque descendants of pregnant enslaved African women thrown overboard by slavers in the Atlantic - came to be through the eyes of the original Historian. We also get the perspective of the Historian prior to Yetu who declared war to the “two-legs” 600 years ago as a reaction to the massacre of his people. Though the main perspective lies with our protagonist where she contemplates her role as Historian and her place in the world.
This is a story about traumatic, community, identity and healing. It’s not a lighthearted read, but I felt myself experiencing a sense of understanding and compassion. I am African American, a descendant of enslaved Africans who survived and persisted through this unimaginable experience. Throughout my reading, there was a sense of comfort in the idea that from the violence of slavery, something magical and beautiful could be born.
The representation of water is embedded in various myths, religion, and spirituality throughout many African traditions. Water is the source of life and rejuvenation. In The Deep, those children of the Africans drowned are returned to water, where life was first formed on Earth, and reborn as something new and powerful. It’s an incredible story and I am so happy I finally got around to reading it.
