Ta-Nehisi Coates is a respected journalist, nonfiction author and teacher. The Water Dancer is his first novel, and it's an admirable effort.

There have been many novels about slavery, the Underground Railroad and the African-American experience. For a debut novel to earn the positive reviews and critical applause it has, you know it must possess qualities which raise it above the pedestrian level.

The plot involves Hiram Walker, a slave sired by a plantation owner. Hi has a photographic memory, which delights his father, who moves him into the big house and has a tutor educate him (this last a rare and often illegal practice). But his father's motivation isn't the result of love. The boy is employed as a source of amusement for the planter and his friends.

Despite his mental acuity, Hi has only minimal memories of his mother and his efforts to recall them generates an unexpected power called Conduction, which enables him to transport himself and others over long distances.

His power increases after an accident in which a carriage he and his white half-brother were riding in plunges into the surging waters of the Goose River. His brother drowns. Hiram survives to become involved in the Underground Railroad, where he uses Conduction to rescue strangers and people he loves from bondage.

Coates has crafted characters the reader will care about, an imaginative plot and prose that sings like poetry.

Obviously, Coates sees cultural memory/story as the source of great power for achieving change and this explains his use of the paranormal in his story. Personally, I'm not much of a fan of fantasy.

I enjoyed this novel for the most part. Still, I find the realistic stories of Harriet Tubman (also portrayed in the novel as a practitioner of Conduction), the Still family and other heroes black and white of the Underground Railroad who fought against the evils of slavery, the repugnant practice which left a permanent stain on the history of this nation.

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