I do appreciate the creation of this story and I would even read it again, it's just a hard one to grasp. Because of the Disney animated film, The Little Mermaid, we may feel inclined to think of mermaids as an appropriate subject for children. But it was, in fact, never thus, and folktales involving mermaids rarely have happy endings. Smithsonian Institute description of the mermaid mythologies surrounding Mami Wata. The Penguin Book of Mermaids: Highlights (video) Since the history of the wajinru is too painful for them to bear, but the thought of forgetting is even more impossible, they appoint one member of their species to carry the memories for everyone. Every year, the historian must deliver the history to their people, allowing them to process the lessons and value of the memories before becoming blissfully unaware once more. Given her sensitivity, no one should have been surprised that the rememberings affected Yetu more deeply than previous historians, but then everything surprised wajinru. Their memories faded after weeks or months—if not through wajinru biological predisposition for forgetfulness, then through sheer force of will. Those cursed with more intact long-term recollection learned how to forget, how to throw themselves into the moment. Only the historian was allowed to remember.

Worse, the wajinru didn’t know who was to succeed Yetu. They may not have had the memories to understand the importance of this fully, but they had an inkling. It had been plain to all for many years that Yetu was a creature on the precipice, and without a successor in place, they’d be lost. They’d have to improvise. a b c d Solomon, Rivers. "Rivers Solomon - Xeno-biography". Rivers Solomon - Mothership. Archived from the original on 28 September 2020 . Retrieved January 29, 2021.

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Another interesting theme is "the immediate and visceral pain inherent in passing down past trauma" to your children. While it is true people need to be connected to their past, there are lingering consequences when that history is tarnished by cruelty. "When you are in pain, sometimes the only escape is another different pain." The horrors of the Middle Passage, like the Holocaust or indigenous genocides, seem to both demand and resist fantasy: on the one hand, the imagination needed to even approximate it in fiction requires resources beyond those of realistic or historical fiction, while on the other, invoking the tools of SF or fantasy risks turning historical outrage into comforting myth. Brown, Alex (2019-11-05). "Wade in the Water: The Deep by Rivers Solomon". Tor.com . Retrieved 2020-11-06. I just mean that she’s different, you know? Not like us. She’s not so good with, hm, how do you say, human interaction and any trappings of decorum or rules. I suppose that’s why she prefers animals to people. Most animals don’t exchange hellos and ask how the other is. They just exist next to one another.”

Having been abandoned by their Historian, the wajinru beneath the surface are slowly being driven mad by the burden of their people's traumatic memories. Their madness is creating a storm like the one that previously engulfed the surface world. Yetu must decide whether or not to return, saving both her people and the surface-dwellers like Oori, at the cost of retaking the burden of her people's memories.Come to me,” said Amaba, several paces away. Too weak to argue, Yetu offered no protest. She resigned herself for now to do her amaba’s biddings. “You need medicine, child. And food. When did you last eat?” Gary K. Wolfe and Ian Mond Review The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes". Locus Online. 2020-02-11 . Retrieved 2020-11-05.

This story hit me hard from the very beginning. I was so angry at the Wajinru for putting the burden of their entire history all on Yetu's shoulders. All alone, in so much pain, pain they should have been sharing together rather than dumping it all on Yetu and it was killing her, literally. As the story progressed though I understood why they did it. I felt so much for Yetu. At times I related to certain things from being disabled, neuro-divergent and a rather sensitive INFP. I just wanted to hug Yetu and scream at the rest of the Wajinru that they were killing Yetu and didn't even seem to notice. There are parts of the book where the perspective changes from first person singular to first person plural as Solomon immerses her readers in two Remembrances. It is through the collective voice of the ancestors and the living wajinru that we understand some of the painful history haunting Yetu. It has themes of being oneself, of being a part of a group and having a group history, of kinship, trauma, climate change. I'm sure there is even stuff I missed. It has powerful messages wrapped in a fantasy story with merfolk. I loved learning about the Wajinru and how they worked. I loved the arc the story went on as well as Yetu's character arc. I may have been angry for much of the story but it ends on hope and so beautifully, the ending had me sobbing. It moved me and it made me think. I had to put it down sometimes to really digest it as well as calm myself down. I enjoyed the hint of romance. I'd gladly read more from this world and these characters. A historian’s role was to carry the memories so other wajinru wouldn’t have to. Then, when the time came, she’d share them freely until they got their fill of knowing. The project revolving around this mythos lasted for 10 years until Stinton’s death in 2002, but the concept lived on. Fifteen years later, the hip-hop band Clipping (stylised as clipping.), led by Diggs, of Hamilton and Snowpiercer fame, sampled from the Drexciya mythos to create the Hugo-nominated song The Deep. This song imagined a Drexciyan uprising against the surface world in protest of climate change and destructive deep sea seismic surveying for oil. It was interesting to hear the way they sampled from Drexciya, turning a more utopian and trippy sound into a song about environmental protection and nature’s rage.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. In short, I would need to read this again before I can provide more thoughts. Something I would most definitely be willing to do.

Stories (and what is history if not a bunch of stories we tell about ourselves?) act much like a game of telephone. They are passed down, and thus they survive, but their shape changes as they get interpreted differently by every individual. In The Deep we are told that the role of Historian is one handed down from generation to generation, and we are presented with three different bearers of the title: Zoti, Basha, and Yetu. And through them we get three interpretations of history. To Zoti, the first Historian, it is vital to the continued survival of their people. To Basha, it is a call to action, past hurts fueling a righteous rage at present injustice. And to Yetu, it is simply a burden, too deep and heavy to carry on her own.⠀ In folklore if a girl went missing while out on the ebb, or at sea, it was said that her silkie lover had taken her to his watery domain. While the world-building is impressive for a novella, there was one interesting area where I felt more detail was needed. All wajinru carry both male and female reproductive organs. They typically couple in groups of up to five with "everything to be engaged at once." As a consequence, their concept of gender is different from the two-legs. Wajinru individually determine whether to identity as male, female, both, or neither. This left me with unanswered questions: Among sentient creatures whose biology is identical, why would gender roles evolve at all? Do the nonbinary wajinru fill different functions in their society than the males and females? David was strumming his guitar and singing to himself when she first raised her barnacled, seaweed-clotted head from the flat, grey sea, its stark hues of turquoise not yet stirred. Plain so, the mermaid popped up and watched him for some time before he glanced around and caught sight of her. Maybe it’s also the way “The Deep” ends with hope and reconciliation, as Yetu and her community work on alternative ways to hold the rememberings and care for each other. I found it especially meaningful that, although Yetu is in many ways the archetypal young protagonist who’s different and burdened, it’s her loved ones in the community who help her to find the eventual solution, and who insist to her that her safety and happiness are worthwhile. These are intergenerational, community traumas, and only the whole community working together can hold them.One can only go for so long without asking who am I? Where do I come from? What does all this mean? What is being? What came before me, and what might come after? Without answers, there is only a hole, a hole where a history should be that takes the shape of an endless longing. We are cavities.” However, this is juxtaposed against the revelation that the wajinru warred against the surface world a generation prior. This is told through the memories of Basha, Yetu's predecessor, who lived when the wajinru were threatened by global warming and energy companies desiring the fossil fuels lying below the ocean bed: "Below us, deep beneath the sand, there is a substance they crave. It is their life force. They feast on it like blood." Basha led the wajinru, whose emotions can telekinetically control the ocean's water, in creating a massive storm and tidal wave that wreaked devastation on the surface world. She wasn’t used to speaking so freely about her wants and needs. She wasn’t used to having wants and needs of her own at all. It had always been a battle between what the wajinru needed, what the ancestors needed, and what she needed. A single lonely girl, her own needs never won.”