Reviewed by Ryan O’Boyle
Memories. They build who we were, are and will be. Without them, we are born anew every moment. The past a flickering candle that is snuffed out quickly. We forget many memories in our life as we experience new things. Time can make some memories wane, while some burn brightly in the face of corrosion.
What if you could live a life unburdened by the past for each day but one? What if the entirety of memory for a species was contained in one single member of that species and shared those memories once a year. Would those memories shock the system to such an extent that the bearers of the weight of those memories got lost in them, floating in a torpid bath of memory, unable to distinguish the past from the now, not knowing how to react? What if a mysterious force could coax yet unborn babies to be born with the ability to breathe underwater? What form would those babies take and how would that change humanity? Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes ask these questions and more in The Deep.
Wajinru developed in the Deep. Pregnant slaves thrown overboard to save space had their babies coaxed into breathing by mysterious forces. Changes to the body made them the first Wajinru. In essence, mermaids. The Wajinru developed to hold the entirety of their species memory. However, the pain of holding it all was cast to one specific person, called the Historian. The Historian was tasked with handling the brunt of the memories so that the group could flourish unburdened.
Yetu, the current Historian, is averse to the pain and sorrow this inflicts. During a ceremony called the Remembering, where the Historian bestows the Wajinru with the history of the species’ memories, Yetu escapes the burden of remembrance. The book details her struggle with the responsibility of her ancestors’ memories making her only the Historian, and her inexorable desire to be only Yetu.
While the book is short, it is impactful. Rivers Solomon crafts an engrossing tale of love, loss and expectation.