Rivers Solomon

William Hutson

Jonathan Snipes

Daveed Diggs

ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society—and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future in this brilliantly imaginative novella inspired by the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep” from Daveed Diggs’s rap group clipping 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. Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are. Inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping for the This American Life episode “We Are In The Future,” The Deep is vividly original and uniquely affecting.

The Deep

Amelia Hruby

These didn't have to be contradictions. She let the multiple truths exist inside her as a way of meditating. It was something that she'd learned to do when deal- ing with the rememberings, to try to find a modicum of quiet and accept the multitudes inside herself. She never reached calm, nor even a steadiness, but she did it anyway. It made her remember that she existed.

"Remember," Yetu ordered, voice flling the womb. Yetu gave them a script, but they knew the words. It lived in their cartilage and their organs, as coded into them as the shape of the webbed appendages on their front fins or the bulbousness of their eyes. She only need remind them. That was all remembering was. Prodding them lest they try to move on from things that should not be moved on from. Forgetting was not the same as remembering

IT WAS NO LONGER SUNG. For that morsel of mercy, Yetu gave thanks. She understood why all the historians before Basha performed the Remembrance to melody, that impulse to salvage a speck of beauty from tragedy with a dirge, but Yetu wanted people to remember how she remembered. With screams. She had no wish to transform trauma to performance, to parade what she'd come to think of as her own tragedies for entertainment.

Their memories faded after weeks or months- if not through wajinru biological predisposition for forgetfulness, then through sheer force of will. Those cursed with ness, more intact long-term recollection learned how to forget, how to throw themselves into the moment. Only the his- torian was allowed to remember.

isabelle

for me personally? only with someone who is quite special in a specific kind of way

shark sacrifice the water version of lamb sacrifices 

She pressed her teeth into those places ... then let the blood drain from it

Octavia E. Butler meets Marvel’s Black Panther in The Deep, a story rich with Afrofuturism, folklore, and the power of memory, inspired by the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep” from Daveed Diggs’s rap group Clipping. 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. Yetu will learn more than she ever expected about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are. The Deep is “a tour de force reorientation of the storytelling gaze…a superb, multilayered work,” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and a vividly original and uniquely affecting story inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping.

Sabrina D. 

“You're always wanting answers to why I do the things I do, but when try to give them, you cannot fathom it. Is this my curse? To be unfathomable? Am I even alive anymore? Maybe Yetu is already dead," said Yetu. "Are you even holdıng me now, Amaba? Or are you holding a corpse?”

about identity, cultural history, ignorance vs. awareness 

Oori shook her head and stood up from the water. “But your whole history. Your ancestry. That's who you are." “No. I am who l am now. Before, I was no one. When you’re everyone in the past, and when you're for everyone in the present, you're no one. Nobody. You don't exist. I didn’t exist…

Nicole Lucy O'Loughlin

This was so beautifully written and creative. I was immersed almost immediately. Though it’s a fantasy, the way Rivers Solomon is able to use these mer-creatures as a way of exploring inter generational Black trauma and healing is very real. The only reason it’s not a 5 star is because there were one or two times where I was confused about who was speaking or from whose perspective I was reading the story, and that confusion took me out of it even if I was able to recalibrate and figure it out shortly after.

Nik ✨

Jennifer Gosnell

Wow. This was a beautiful and tragic exploration of intergenerational trauma and so many other things. What an amazing story and such a fresh take on mermaid tales.

borrowed the wrong book from my library. had fun though.

baku

a brilliant novella about the importance of history, no matter how painful

ephe

Sarah Sammis

The conceit throughout is that babies before they are born live in saltwater environments in the womb. What if the sea could reclaim them and give them a life they were denied by those who threw their mothers overboard?

This novel has narratives from four distinct eras: the time of the drowning, the time of the remembering, the time of the escape, and the time of the return. These are my names for the sections. The language and the way commonplace things become revered through the forgetfulness of history reminds me of an underwater version of A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller Jr (1959).

Marginalized	Uhoria	Offroad	66CC66

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2019/comm...

Maria

a very unique perspective on merpeople! i wish it were longer though

i think… i might just be too dumb to fully understand the structuring of this story. because after finishing this… i’m just confused???

liana

4⭐️

Forgetting was not the same as healing

This book is pure suffering but I think everyone should read it. 
Unfortunately, in the times we are living in, there is a lot of racism and this book talks about it in a way that makes you suffer from start to finish. I’ve read this book in an afternoon and it is so well written but it wasn’t an easy read for all the topics it deals with.

TW: Slavery, racism, genocide, murder, colonisation, grief

chloe rae

3.5*

This book was incredible. It was heart breaking and mesmerizing. From the get go, the reader is following around this main character as she navigates all these different forms of darkness: the darkness of the deep, the darkness within her mixing with the darkness of the past.

I found myself a little unattached at the beginning, and it took me a moment to make sense of all the details and information. But once my understanding grew, I found everything so FASCINATING. And so beautifully written! There were so many themes discussed in this book, each just as important and poignant as the last. I loved exploring this underwater world and seeing how these mermaid-like people dealt with such a horrific past while navigating their current place in the world. We get snippets of different time periods and characters; there was a lovely little aspect of romance towards the end. I loved the journey this books takes us on. Such a small book with such lasting effect. Can’t wait to read more of her work!

Kweh Quiambao

This book explores how important history is for the wajinru, while also wanting to shield their people from the horror of it. Isn't the goal for the next generation to live great abundant lives?

The conflict was so good I don't know what to expect, how I want it to end. I don't know which direction was the right one. You can't really blame their ancestors for wanting them to be free from the truth. And you can't blame Yetu for choosing to free herself from this responsibility that's killing her.

Can't help but to reflect on my own country; our history and the collective mistakes we're making.

What an impactful book, all thanks to the #TransRightsReadathon for it led this book to me.

(Full review in my reading journal)

Mae Erceg

4/5 stars because it was just beautiful but not quite the most compelling read. The remembering was quite painful to read and I just felt like the book was primarily full of agony the whole time. And I understand that this is meant to reflect the plight of racism in our world today but it was quite hard to maintain the joy of reading something so serious. Still a VERY valuable book and I believe it’s a great read. Would HIGHLY recommend!!

Joy Bush

3.75 ⭐
Check out the song The Deep by Clipping.

B Sai Sushma

Nessa Luna

I enjoyed the audiobook (and being 'called out' for listening to it at double speed, lol) but I felt kind of lost in the story. It started off interesting, but I think it may have been better had it been a full-length novel or maybe (as I saw in someone else's review) a short story collection about this subject. It was an interesting subject, definitely, but it just didn't manage to grab me, unfortunately.

Prashanth Srivatsa

A gut-wrenching, lyrical masterpiece on history, what it means to want to forget it, to forge your identity, and ultimately, the quest to grieve, overcome and rebuild what was lost, and what was done.

angie

Jamieson

“Forgetting was not the same as healing.”


really impactful story about collective memory and trauma and trying to unravel the responsibility of the individual to the collective. I really like speculative fiction and this has such a good premise (the children of pregnant women thrown overboard during the transatlantic slave trade became mermaids) I loved the authors note about how this book came around and the collaboration across multiple creative platforms, really interesting. 

Yetu was a sympathetic and her role as the historian led to some really interesting discussions around psychology and the burden/trauma of remembering versus the liberation and relief of knowing and feeling connected to your identity and heritage. I really liked her discussions with Ori centring on this theme. 

This felt thematically rich and explores so many issues around culture, history, life and identity in such a short period. It's also wonderfully queer. There were a few parts where the POV shifts confused me (could be due to the audiobook rather than the writing) but overall I really liked this

Midori Kobayashi

5/5stars

The only problem I had with this book was that it was SUCH A SHORT ONE, pls I NEED MORE OF SOLOMON'S WRITING!!! I read An Unkindness of Ghosts earlier this year and I fell in love with the author's writing style and this books just adds on to it. 



Forgetting was not the same as healing.



The author's writing is so poignant, so enchanting and especially the theme of this book, I don't think I have read any other book about intergenerational trauma. The allegory used in this book while talking about history, belonging, generational trauma using African folklore is so unique and beautifully done. 



She had no wish to transform trauma to performance, to parade what she’d come to think of as her own tragedies for entertainment.



For those who don't know, this is a story about merpeople who were born when pregnant African slave women were thrown into oceans and how they carry generations worth of trauma and the memories haunt them (well this one person because they have dissociated and only one person actually remembers their whole history). It's beautiful story, it's short  IT TALKS ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE, ABOUT NEURODIVERGENCE, ABOUT QUEER FOLKS,I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. 



CWs for the book: Animal death, Attempted suicide, Hallucinations, Slavery, Self-harm

Rachel Kanyid

Honestly this book was very interesting and ethereal, but also extremely strange. It kept reminding me of The Giver mixed with And The Ocean Was Our Sky.

Ryan LaFerney

Of the nearly 12.5 million enslaved Africans who were transported to the Americas in the 16th - 19th centuries, it has been estimated that 1.8 million died en route, their bodies, some still alive, tossed overboard into the ocean....

And the pregnant women gave birth underwater to a new civilization and species: a mermaid-like, undersea race called the wajinru, and they live in The Deep. 
Inspired by the Clipping. song "The Deep", Rivers Solomon and crew have created a smart novella about memory, survival, and the burden of generational trauma that's compelling in its world-building. 

"...History was not an imagining, not just stored electrical pulses. They were people who'd lived. Who'd breathed and wept and loved and lost."

The Deep tells the story of Yetu, the historian for the Wajinru, who must remember for her entire race but the history is too heavy a burden too bear. She rebels against the duty that's been thrust upon her, even as that rebellion parallels a much more perilous threat — the surface dwellers, called two-legs, who have begun to encroach on the idyllic existence of the wajinru in their rapacious search for oil. With their invasion comes the realization of a brutal truth: Yetu and her people are in fact descendants of the two-legs, the offspring of the thousands of captives thrown overboard to drown during the height of the transatlantic slave trade.

I found the Afterward describing the shared world/inspiration of the book to be quite rewarding. Don't skip on it!

I liked the ending it was cute. The fact I read it for school might have ruined the reading experience a little bit.

Brooke Barnett

Montgomery Pierce

I'm still not sure that my thoughts on this book are fully formed, let alone cohesive, but I cannot recommend this book enough. 

It's powerful, in a quiet way that demands your full attention, from understanding Yetu to understanding her people and the struggles that face them both individually and collectively due to the generational trauma linked back to their origins, and the tenuous balance between preserving the past while protecting the future. The Deep, while being under 200 pages, packs a novel's worth and more of emotion, heart, character, and depth that I'm still thinking about weeks after having originally read it. 

I think at the moment, the most striking thing about The Deep is while the Wanjiru origins are directly tied to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Yetu's purpose in this is the cultivation of the memories of this, of where her people come from, there is less a focus on studying the grotesqueness and the darkness of that history in graphic detail, and a deeper focus on the effect of that on the people who came after, particularly with Yetu, who bears the brunt of that history for her people. We do not often get to examine the generational baggage that comes from how our ancestors came to be, how carrying it constantly at the forefront and the expectation of always being keenly aware of it hurts--and how tempting it can be to ignore it and forget it entirely. 

And yet, even with how bleak this can all sound, I don't believe that The Deep itself is a bleak and hopeless book. The premise alone--the idea that life could have come from the deaths of the countless pregnant women tossed to sea over the hauls of slave ships--is so unexpectedly hopeful in and of itself. That their deaths weren't the end of their legacies and that there are people remained who cared about them and refused to let their memories die is a powerful concept that defies the intentions of the slavers and colonizers who led them there to begin with. 

The Deep is definitely a book that'll be getting a good few re-reads while I attempt to sparse my thoughts on this a little more. I don't think a single read is going to thoroughly capture the magnificence that was this novella, and Rivers Solomon is a force to be reckoned with, with their writing.

Didi Chanoch

Well, dang. 

This short novel (novella, novelette? I'm not sure) packs a heck of a punch. Based on the Clipping song by the same name, and written by the brilliant Rivers Solomon, this story takes the myth created by techno duo Drexciya - expanded upon by Clipping - and builds a story on it that is both deeply personal and vast in scope. Much of the scope is only glimpsed, but it is definitely there. It is a story of trauma, and how deeply awful human beings have been - and continue to be - to the world and its inhabitants. It is a story about responsibility, personal and communal. It is, perhaps first and foremost, a story about memory. 

What if the one who walks away from Omelas, the story asks - indirectly. While I definitely see the Le Guin there, it may be in my eyes - is the child.

The Deep

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