The Water Dancer

“The water dancer” is a beautifully written novel about the life of a black man during slavery. Not just any black man but one of several children who’s mothers were slaves but who’s fathers were the men of the plantation (aka the slave owners). Following Hiram through his journey from right after his mother was sold as he grows into a man and faces his challenges, is heartbreaking. Watching Hiram serve his brother the heir to the plantation as though he is just another slave, because despite his paternal line he is in fact a slave. Watching him get his ambitions, become free and an agent of the underground with an ancient and thrilling ability. It was a fantastic novel.

It has to be one of the cruelest things slave owners did. Taking slave mistresses, first of all, rape much? It’s not as though these women were in any particular situation that they could really feel safe saying no. Furthermore cursing a child with being different, belonging neither fully to the slaves and yet never belonging to the “genteel”. I can’t even imagine how hard that would be for a child. To know that someone is your father, is your brother and yet to know that they do not see you or treat you as such.

Don’t even get me started on Hiram's mother being sold away without him. While yes towards the end of the book you learn that it was because she attempted to run with him and his father couldn’t bear to part with his son that he still enslaved . How do you take a small child from their mother? Then again I don’t understand how you treat another human being as your property so I probably shouldn’t try to understand, it’ll just make me mad.

Above all I hated Corrine, this bitch. She decided to become a part of the underground, to get slaves out, but she also thought she had the right to stand there and be judge on who could get out and who couldn’t. She didn’t free Hiram because she wanted to help him. She freed Hiram because she thought he could “conduct” people. She absolutely refused to help get Hiram’s family out, Thena who had raised him after his mother was sold and the girl he loved. Corrine was probably worried that Hiram would high tail it north with them and never come back, never serve HER cause. People like this are especially irritating, yes she did good, she was getting slaves out, free and north, but also if you worked at her station you weren’t really free, you couldn’t just walk away and say I don’t want to do this anymore. Meaning they weren’t really free.


The first time Hiram was really free was when he arrived in Philadelphia. He was treated as human, he was cared for like family. He was given the option of walking away if that’s what he needed.

I thought spinning Harriet’s status as a conductor into having this mystical ancient power was really intriguing. Harriet in actual history got so many slaves out of the south. It’s incredible, I remember learning about her as a kid and thinking how, how in the hell did she manage that. I feel like Hiram was modeled after her not only in being given the “conduction” power himself, but in his tenacity, his willingness to go straight back into the jaws of slavery in the south to make sure he could get those he loved out, and to help others get those they loved out.



All in all, this novel was poignant, I cried, I laughed, I got stressed, it was a wild ride and one I highly recommend.

"The Water Dancer" by Ta-nehisi Coates