She would be king : a novel

Title:

Author:

Moore, Wayétu, author.

Personal Author:

Moore, Wayétu, author.

ISBN:

9781555978174

Physical Description:

294 pages ; 24 cm

Abstract:

Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper, and left for dead, but still she survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him. When the three meet in the settlement of Monrovia, their gifts help them salvage the tense relationship between the African American settlers and the indigenous tribes, as a new nation forms around them. -- Adapted from jacket.

Subject Term:

Ability -- Fiction.

Outcasts -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Liberia -- History -- Fiction.

Liberia -- History -- 1847-1944 -- Fiction.

Genre:

Historical fiction.

Magic realism (Literature)

Magic realist fiction.

Novels.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
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Searching... East End	Book	FICTION MOORE	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Ginter Park	Book	FICTION MOORE	Searching... Unknown
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Summary

A novel of exhilarating range, magical realism, and history--a dazzling retelling of Liberia's formation

Wayétu Moore's powerful debut novel, She Would Be King , reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia's early years through three unforgettable characters who share an uncommon bond. Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper, and left for dead, but still she survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, the child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him. When the three meet in the settlement of Monrovia, their gifts help them salvage the tense relationship between the African American settlers and the indigenous tribes, as a new nation forms around them.

Moore's intermingling of history and magical realism finds voice not just in these three characters but also in the fleeting spirit of the wind, who embodies an ancient wisdom. "If she was not a woman," the wind says of Gbessa, "she would be king." In this vibrant story of the African diaspora, Moore, a talented storyteller and a daring writer, illuminates with radiant and exacting prose the tumultuous roots of a country inextricably bound to the United States. She Would Be King is a novel of profound depth set against a vast canvas and a transcendent debut from a major new author.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

An ambitious, genre-hopping, continent-spanning novel that uses the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade as the backdrop for a magical realist adventure.Following four characters from far-flung corners of the African diaspora, debut novelist Moore tells the story of Liberia's formation in the mid-19th century. When a Virginia slave named Charlotte dies while trying to protect a fellow slave, her death sets in motion a series of supernatural events that changes the tiny West African nation's history. Her son, June Dey, flees from the plantation and soon discovers he has superhuman strength. He boards a ship for New York only to find himself headed for Liberia. Meanwhile, a white British scholar named Callum Aragon arrives in Jamaica to study Maroon communities and forces the Maroon slave Nanni to assist him. Nanni soon saves Aragon's life with the help of a peculiar ability: She can become invisible under certain circumstances. Nanni eventually gives birth to Aragon's son, a boy named Norman who possesses abilities similar to his mother's. Across the Atlantic, in a West African village called Lai, a little girl named Gbessa is born on a day that the village elders have proclaimed cursed; as a result, she garners a reputation as a witch. The reputation isn't entirely unearned: Gbessa has abilities that allow her to return from the dead. Cast out from her village, she becomes anathema to everyone but Safua, a little boy who promises to help her. June Dey, Norman, and Gbessa eventually find themselves united in Liberia as the fledgling nation is being wracked by incursions from French slave traders and tensions between black American settlers and African natives. Their desires for freedom and family drive them into each other's armsand toward a major event in the history of Liberia's formation. Moore is a brisk and skilled storyteller who weaves her protagonists' disparate stories together with aplomb yet is also able to render her sprawling cast of characters in ways that feel psychologically compelling. In addition, the novel's various settingsVirginia, Jamaica, and West Africaare depicted so lushly that readers will find themselves enchanted. Unfortunately, getting these characters' stories to intersect at the back end of the book requires a level of narrative contrivance that sends the tale careening out of myth and into the realm of clumsiness.A sweeping and entertaining novel encumbered by an unwieldy plot. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.