Slaves are referred to as “The Tasked”, slave masters are “the Quality”, the slave catchers are “The Hounds” and so forth. The Water Dancer, Coates uses a poet’s prowess to invent a lexicon of proper nouns that recast the slave narrative. He stays loyal to his characters and through evocative language, utilizes genre elements to elevate his key themes: the importance of memory and the discernment needed to define family fluidly in the struggle created by the institution of slavery. Coates builds upon recent and traditional African American literature while succeeding in mixing genre. After years of proliferating influential essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates‘ offers an accessible, intelligent work of historical fiction with fantastical elements in his debut novel, The Water Dancer (2019).
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