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The Deep cover art

The Deep

Written by: Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes
Narrated by: Daveed Diggs
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Publisher's Summary

The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society - and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future in this brilliantly imaginative novella inspired by the Hugo Award-nominated song "The Deep" from Daveed Diggs' rap group, Clipping.

Yetu holds the memories for her people - water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners - who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one - the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu. 

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. 

Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past - and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity - and own who they really are. 

Inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping for the This American Life episode "We Are in the Future", The Deep is vividly original and uniquely affecting.

©2019 Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes (P)2019 Simon & Schuster

What the critics say

"Narrator Daveed Diggs brings his unique voice to Rivers Solomon's collaborative novella, The Deep, inspired by a song of the same name, written by Diggs's band, Clipping. Diggs explores his multilayered world through the voice of Yetu, the historian of an ocean-dwelling people called the Wajinru, descended from pregnant African women thrown overboard during the transatlantic slave trade." (AudioFile Magazine)

What listeners say about The Deep

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    5 out of 5 stars

QUEER it’s so lovely and affirming, fav of 2023

Oh my gosh. This book spoke to many hurt parts of me. This book was like a hug of affirmation.

It both questioned system, and didn’t. It let the reader question the systems without directly addressing them. In other books I normally attribute indirectness to laziness on the authors’ part, but in this book the systems and their impacts are addressed so thoughtfully that it is clear that the intent in not over explaining questions of systemic morality is to demand the reader apply their imaginations to the problem, thereby creating an intimacy between the reader and the perspectives of characters.

This book was so thoughtfully written, it felt as though every line of it was a move in chess, each detail necessary to the telling of the intricate story. I am shocked at the world building and character development that these authors accomplished in the length of a three hour audiobook. My favourite book of 2023, just in time for the end of the year.

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loved the genderqueerness of it all.

loved the concepts and characters and species and realtions and world. I I I i

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Not for me.

The first chapter (and entire concept in general) were so interesting that I put the book on hold till I had time to marathon it.
Unfortunately, once I sat down with it, the later chapters were not as engaging.
I found my mind wandering nearly every time I tried to read this.
Finally I just forced the last chunk.
The world building & character development felt peripheral at best.
The notes at the end make it sound like that might have been intentional?

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Sad to of finished

Stunningly beautiful and heartbreaking story and a truly brilliant use of imagination and history that you can do deeply be immersed into. Stunning stunning job!

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