Oh my goodness, this book blew my mind. It begins with every white person in America walking into the nearest body of water and drowning. That cataclysmic beginning sets the stage for this glowing book about identity and who owns it.
Charlie is a teacher at Howard University, though he’s not really. He was in prison, and after the cataclysm, he and the other inmates are broken out by families. He is a naturally gifted “fixer” of things, so he takes up as a teacher of photovoltaic systems.
Sidney is a biracial young woman who grew up in a white family in Wisconsin. She sees her entire family walk into the lake and drown and though she tried valiantly, they could not be saved from doing so. Charlie is her father, though he’s been in prison her entire life. She doesn’t know this, and she blames him for running out of her and her mother.
Sidney calls Charlie at his office at Howard, and asks him to take her to Orange Beach, AL. She believes that there are still people “like her” alive there, because her aunt left her a note saying so before she left town. Charlie is the only person who “owes” her something, so she collects on this perceived debt by asking him to get her back to “her people”. He agrees, and drives to Wisconsin to get her.
And here is where the book really begins to roll. They do make it to Alabama, but they’re forced into a side quest that ends up being literally life-changing for everyone involved. The source of the cataclysm is revealed and it draws in Nikolas Tesla, the African diaspora, and 25,000 years of history. Charlie’s ongoing role in that source raises questions of what’s right and what’s just, and Sidney’s ongoing quest to find out who she is makes a beautiful counterpoint to the plot.
Part road novel, part Afrofuturism, part apocalyptic, part utopia, there are so many facets at work here that this debut novel rather defies being slotted into a standard genre. I was hooked from page one. The overarching theme is “who are we” and the subject of identity, particularly Black identity, is at the core. Another theme is “what makes a family” and that is deeply and gorgeously rendered.
I picked this book up on a whim at the Washington Square Library this morning and read it straight through. It’s a winner and definitely a worthwhile read.
The Amy Experience 