In Other Words
She Would Be King
June Dey is the son of two slaves — one a metaphoric force of nature, and the other, his mother Charlotte, a literal one, whose soul joins “a chorus of spirits, of ancestors, like me” to become part of the wind.
Khati cannot keep her baby from being born, even though a cat has just been viciously beaten by an embittered old neighbor — a terrible sign for Khati’s child. In the village of Lai in West Africa, the spirits have let it be known that cats must be taken care of. Gbessa, the daughter Khati gives birth to, is shunned by the village, deemed a witch.
Wayétu Moore’s debut novel She Would Be King begins with an entrancing mix of mythology, magical realism, and evocative prose: “Since Gbessa was ignored by them [the village women], the sun took pleasure in having her all to itself, digging its impression into her pigment, making her skin the color of twilight. And since the sun did not have to share Gbessa with anyone or anything, her hair was also an object of its infatuation, and hung heavily down her back in a long and fiery red bush.” The story’s mysticism traverses the Atlantic and reaches a Virginia tobacco plantation, where another exceptional child is born. June Dey is the son of two slaves — one a metaphoric force of nature, and the other, his mother Charlotte, a literal one, whose soul joins “a chorus of spirits, of ancestors, like me” to become part of the wind.
A third birth brings Norman Aragon into this 19th-century world of ends and origins. Norman is the son of Nanni, whose Jamaican tribe has revolted against colonizing Europeans, and Callum, a cold British scholar studying that tribe. Gbessa, June Dey, and Norman Aragon each have qualities that set them apart from the rest of humanity, though whether they’re curses — as Gbessa’s neighbors believe — or gifts remains to be seen.
As they come into their power, a country is coming into its own. Orchestrated by the American Colonization Society, a colony has been established in West Africa for free blacks from America; “the ACS decided that the Africans would be divided among the settlers to be civilized and Christianized, to work on farms and add to the overall economy and diversity of the free colony.” A class system emerges in the colony, distinguishing the new landowners from the tribespeople who work their land; while among the landowners, discussion percolates of seeking independence from the white governors who still control so much of their lives. The new country would be called Liberia.
Moore’s debut is magnetic, particularly in passages that blend transcendent imagery with grounded depictions of slavery, from initial trade — French slavers hunt the regions near Liberia — to the Virginia shack in which June Dey’s parents hardly live, to the racism that continues to dictate the lives of freed men and women in Africa. As the narrative moves into Liberia, that magnetism becomes somewhat diluted, amid a plot shift into domestic affairs. Gbessa’s life, so far from the village where her power overwhelmed those around her, turns societal; her fiery hair is braided and dyed black. The plot has to do some heavy lifting in these latter portions of the novel, and even the prose seems to be weighed down by the work to get where it’s headed. Yet that destination is a monumental one. The fight for freedom persists, among the villages like Lai and on the shores where intruders try to take what is not theirs. “Africa need us,” Norman Aragon whispers as he carries Gbessa. “Remember your gift.” — Grace Parazzoli