So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her-but was gifted with a mysterious power.

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time.NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE.Adapted by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kamilah Forbes, directed by Nia DaCosta, and produced by MGM, Plan B, and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films.IN DEVELOPMENT AS A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE “This potent book about America’s most disgraceful sin establishes as a first-rate novelist.”- San Francisco Chronicle From the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me, a boldly conjured debut novel about a magical gift, a devastating loss, and an underground war for freedom.Keith Vient, Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC This searing and ultimately uplifting story explores the constructs of family, real or artificial, and the power of memory to bind people together from afar.” In the much-anticipated first novel from Coates, Hiram’s talent is used by agents of the Underground Railroad to bring runaway slaves north, and also to help make families whole once again. But it is the strength of his memories that kindles a special inner gift: the magic of conduction. “Hiram Walker, the son of a Black woman and her white master, is born into slavery in this rendering of life in antebellum Virginia.

Norris Rettiger, Lemuria Bookstore, Jackson, MS Winter 2020 Reading Group Indie Next List Written with poignancy and humanity, The Water Dancer left me stunned but clear-headed, like I had just been woken up from a deep, dream-filled sleep.” Coates writes with an honesty that can only come from a sublime, even spiritual, understanding of the souls of the white man and the black man in America. Over 400 pages I have cried, I have laughed, I have been educated, and I have been enlightened. The Water Dancer led me on a journey up and down the landscape of American slavery with a narrative that feels like The Book of Exodus meets, well, Ta-Nehisi Coates. “Ta-Nehisi Coates understands something big and he understands it better than anyone else right now. St Joseph's University (Brooklyn Voices Series).

The water dancer book review