 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book you bought from an independent bookstore
The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates The story is a mix of slave-era historical novel and fantasy/magical realism. Hiram, the narrator, is the son of an enslaved woman and the plantation owner. Hiram is in a slightly better position than the other enslaved workers: he's spared from working in the fields, and instead is the personal servant of his father's good-for-nothing "legitimate" son. But Virginia's fortunes are sinking, and the people around him are being sold to the Louisiana cotton fields, including Hiram's mother. Hiram knows that this will likely be his own fate after his father's death. Hiram discovers that he has a power called "conduction:" he is able to teleport across water. He resolves to escape, along with Sophia, the forced concubine of Hiram's white uncle. He winds up being trained by "Moses" herself, Harriet Tubman, who has the same power. And eventually Hiram must confront his memories of his mother, the "water dancer" who could dance with a jug on her head without spilling a drop. Some of the language/style things in the novel puzzled me. For instance, Hiram always refers to working as "tasking," and to enslaved people as "the Tasked." It didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the story, but I'm not sure what it was supposed to convey.
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