She Would Be King
Books | Fiction / Literary
4.2
(91)
Wayétu Moore
A novel of exhilarating range, magical realism, and history—a dazzling retelling of Liberia’s formationWayétu 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.
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More Details:
Author
Wayétu Moore
Pages
336
Publisher
Graywolf Press
Published Date
2018-09-11
ISBN
1555978681 9781555978686
Community ReviewsSee all
"3.5 stars - I enjoyed reading She Would Be King; the plot was interesting and kept me rooted in the story. I liked the magical realism Moore brought to the origin story of Liberia and think it added a layer that the book would have suffered without. One of my favorite aspects of the magical realism in the book was the personification of nature. Moore did such a fantastic job weaving in elements of whimsy by making the narrator the wind and giving free will, emotions, and action to elements of nature. The wind talks to the characters and is a reassuring presence that helps the characters continue on their chosen paths. Nature plays a huge role in the book by raising Gbessa; the animals and sun become their own characters and provide a feeling of comfort. I think this style choice really added to the atmosphere of the story and did a lot of heavy lifting with the setting. <br/><br/>However, there were a couple of decisions that I did not love toward the end of the book. I wish June Dey and Norman were explored more as characters in the second half of the book, I think Gbessa took center stage and while her story was interesting, we did lose out on character development for the other two because of it. The last three and a half pages of the book are when the trio is finally reunited again. Before this, there are a few short chapters that focus on either Norman or June Dey, but Gbessa is definitely the main focus. As a reader invested in the stories of these men, I felt I lost something by Moore advancing time four years and only telling us what had happened to Gbessa in that time. There is a line in the last chapter that states June Dey is nearly unrecognizable to Gbessa and Norman because of how much he has changed and I felt similarly. I didn’t feel like I knew Norman or June Dey by the end in the same way I knew Gbessa. It was unbalanced considering we got lengthy origin stories for each character. <br/><br/>Finally, I don’t mind ambiguous endings and often I’m excited to make my own inferences as to what happened. But this story ended in the middle of the “final” battle between the slave traders and the oppressed group of people Gbessa, Norman, and June Dey were fighting for. It left the ending unresolved in my opinion and I was hoping to see the action wrapped up before the ambiguous ending was introduced."
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Alyssa Czernek
