2023 read #8: The Deep by Rivers Solomon.

The Deep by Rivers Solomon with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes

166 pages

Published 2019

Read from January 17 to January 18

Rating: 4 out of 5

CW: historical violence, murder, and slavery

An entrancing and wounding act of collaborative storytelling, The Deep is, as the afterword describes it, the third link in a game of storytelling telephone. It began with Detroit techno-electro duo called Drexciya, who first built the story of an underwater utopia born from the thousands of pregnant African women tossed into the sea during the horrors of the slave trade. Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes carried the story forward with their own interpretation, the song "The Deep" by clipping. This book builds upon that song. Rivers Solomon contributes their own perspective to the lore woven by Drexciya and clipping.

The result is beautiful, haunting, an exploration of vast generational trauma and the collective weight of memory. The book’s collaborative origins dovetail with its themes of storytelling, keeping the ancestors alive in memory, and the importance of community in one’s identity. A superb balance of prose, theme, and conceptualization.