The Deep

by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes

Daveed Diggs (Narrator)

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.

• ISBN10: 1508280282
• ISBN13: 9781508280286
• Publish Date: 5 November 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Format: Audiobook
• Pages: 200
• Language: English

Reviews

[nannah]

I think this was the book I was most looking forward to reading all year. It has one of the most amazing concepts I’d ever read, being about the merfolk descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard during the Middle Passage. Unfortunately, the execution didn’t quite match it.

Content warnings:
- slavery
- trauma & generational trauma
- suicide ideation & attempt

Representation:
- every character is African
- the main character and her love interest are sapphic
- the main character is also autistic with sensory processing disorder (I’m not sure if that’s … “canon”, but as someone who’s also autistic with SPD, I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on here)
- all the merfolk are gender fluid and intersex
- there are also two minor mlm characters shown through a flashback/the Remembering

This book came to be by a strange game of “telephone”, beginning with a song of the same name by the band, Drexciya. It was then covered by the band clipping., and then it finally became this novella by Rivers Solomon. As written in the afterward, Drexciya “created the original mythology:

“Could it be possible for humans to breathe underwater? A foetus in its mother’s womb is certainly alive in its aquatic environment. During the greatest holocaust the world has ever known, pregnant America-bound African slaves were thrown overboard by the thousands during labor for being sick and disruptive cargo. Is it possible that they could have given birth at sea to babies that never needed air? Are Drexciyans water-breathing, aquatically mutated descendants of those unfortunate victims of human greed? Have they been spared by God to teach us or terrorize us?”

Rivers Solomon expands on this mythos here, introducing the concept of a Historian (our protagonist, Yetu) who holds all the memories of past merfolk (“wajinru”) in her own body and mind, literally living her people’s trauma constantly in real time. Her other fellow wajinru are free of this burden, having short memories, save for once a year. Then, in a psychic linking event called the Remembering, the Historian shows them everything, so that they’re always somewhat connected to their past.

Holding all the wajinru’s memories and trauma, however, is killing Yetu. During one Remembering, she decides to save herself and leaves the rest of her people. She wasn’t strong enough to contain the memories, but her people surely will be. Which brings us back to Drexciya’s original line: “Have they been spared by God to teach us or terrorize us?”

I really, really wanted to love this book. There were so many significant and intense themes explored: generational trauma, community, the importance of remembering important (even if traumatic and awful) events, etc. The representation, also, is so well done and well written -- the sensory processing disorder in particular affected me deeply.

But I just couldn’t get past the writing, which just wasn’t my thing. The prose repeated itself so often that I couldn’t find it lovely (repeating several times in a single chapter that Yetu became the Historian at fourteen, that she abandoned the rest of the wajinru in the Remembering, etc. as if it was being said the first time). I don’t know if perhaps this was initially written and published in installments, which would make more sense, but it really took me out of the story and Yetu’s world.

There was also the PoV. I had to remind myself that Yetu was in her thirties -- the writing and PoV constantly made me think she was a teenager in a YA novel, which made the discussion of how the wajinru have sex especially jarring (I didn’t have a problem with the discussion itself, however).

The romance, though, was so uplifting, sincere, and lovely. I fell in love with Oori, as well as Oori and Yetu’s relationship. There were lots of things I liked about The Deep, but I just wish I was able to fall in love with it.

[rohshey]

Fascinating amalgamation of fantasy and history but good concept was not enough for the story to be compelling

[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.

[inlibrisveritas]

4.5 Stars

I'm so glad I finally got around to this one. I've been a fan of clipping. for a few years now and the release of the novel, The Deep was something I was really excited for, and it's just as haunting as the song. It sticks with you well after you finish it, and immediately begs to be experienced again so you can understand it further.

[Veronica 🦦]

B | Powerful. Thought provoking. Breathtaking. The writing itself is excellent. However, the pacing was off in some sections, which made it quite difficult for me to get through parts of the book. I can’t say that this is a favorite and I’m not sure I’d read this book again in the future. But, I do think that people should consider reading (or trying to read) this book at least once.

[Quirky Cat]

It isn't every day that you get to see a novel with this many coauthors. Rivers Solomon was the main writer for The Deep. But there were several other people involved in this project as well, including Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes. If that isn't enough to get you interested, keep reading.
The Deep is a new take on the tale and lore of mermaids, or the wajinru. In this powerful story, mermaids come from the pregnant African slave women who were thrown from slavery boats. The children they gave birth to were perfectly suited to the water, and thus to continue in this new life.
But memories are a tricky thing. Especially when an entire culture is born from pain and suffering. That's where Yetu comes into play. She's the historian of her people, meaning she holds all of the memory and pain of their ancestors.
It's a painful job – literally – but it is how things have always been done. But that doesn't mean Yetu can't find a way to make a change. To find a healthy way to hold on to the past, while living in the present.

“'It was like dreaming,' said Yetu, throat raw. She'd been weeping for days, lost in a remembering of one of the first wajinru.”

The Deep was a powerful and beautiful story. It was so full of emotion and conflicting needs. In many ways, that brought this entire underwater world to life, because life is full of these conflicts. This tale has simply pulled them to extremes.
I was honestly pretty blown away with The Deep. The amount of emotions that they were able to infuse into a relatively small novel...it's impressive. It was powerful and deep (no pun intended), and dark and beautiful. In short, it was perfect.
I love mermaid novels, so it was basically a given that I was going to try out any novel that had a unique take on their history and lore. And I can honestly tell you that the marketing was true for the Deep. This novel wasn't like anything else I've read. On the one hand, I love that. But on the other hand, I need to see more of this, and ideally see it soon.
Yetu was a fascinating character, and I would gladly read several more novels about her, given half a chance. And I know that I'm not the only one feeling that way. I'm sincerely hoping that this will be the first in a series, as opposed to a standalone novel. Fingers crossed!

For more reviews check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[kalventure]

"Inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping for the This American Life episode “We Are In The Future."

The Deep simply blew me away with its powerful prose and blend of history and fantasy. It's a story of memory and history, the individual versus the group, of identity, of pain and of hope. This is such a beautifully crafted and powerful story that I can't recommend enough.

"Forgetting was not the same as healing."

Descended from pregnant African women thrown overboard from slave ships, the wajinru have no long-term memory, instead choosing to live in the moment without the burden of the past. It is the responsibility of their historian - Yetu - to hold the memories for them so they aren't lost, and once a year they have a ceremony to remember the history for a brief time. But the weight of the painful and traumatic memories consumes Yetu and threatens her life.

"Who was she outside of her relationship to her kin?"

I adore stories that delve into concepts of identity, so it is no surprise that I was particularly taken with The Deep. Yetu's journey to save herself leads to an exploration of personhood. Who are we without our past? Can we find a balance between remembering the past and not being crippled by it? I found hope in the narrative and Yetu's journey.

"There were men, women, both, and neither. Such things were self-determined and Yetu wondered if two-legs had self-determination too."

The world is casually LGBTQIAP+, which made me so incredibly happy. Suka uses they/them pronouns and the wajinru are described to be fluid in terms of sexual identity. Labels don't really seem to matter much and I appreciate that a lot.

Solomon's prose evokes powerful emotion and is captivating in its prose. Solomon did an amazing job, bringing to life the vast world imagined by Clipping's song of the same name. There is so much I can say about this novella but I think it is one best experienced with as little information as possible; I highly recommend this one, friends!