When I reviewed Vol. 1, The Pox Party, I commended its "distinctly strange atmosphere, compounded of Gothic horror, Enlightenment idealism, slave memoir, and YA coming-of-age novel," and called it "brilliant, surprising, imaginative." By the novel's end, as the Revolutionary War is breaking out, Octavian is fleeing toward the King's camp, hoping for freedom. When I'd finished, I couldn't wait for the next volume. So it's with the deepest regret I must now report how disappointed I am with The Kingdom on the Waves.
As the centerpiece of his novel, Anderson has chosen a little-known episode in the American revolution, when Lord Dunsmore creates his Ethiopian Regiment by offering freedom to slaves of Rebel owners who join up. After a major defeat, Dunsmore's coalition retreats aboard a small fleet offshore, the "kingdom on the waves" of the title. Smallpox soon ravages the mostly uninoculated former slaves, and the whole thing ends in defeat.
Yes, it's an overlooked part of history, and Octavian's position offers an interestingly bitter, cynical view on "liberty" in the colonies, and there's something bracing about hearing Washington referred to as that Virginian slave-driver. But in being so fascinated by his setting, Anderson has forgotten to tell a story.
The intriguing atmosphere of suppressed horror from Vol. 1 becomes a numbing atmosphere of claustrophobic futility in Vol. 2. Bar a few entertaining scenes and Anderson's always lively dialogue, this book goes nowhere slowly. An enormous swath of its 561 pages are spent in gloom belowdecks while Octavian and his friends wait and wait and wait for something to happen while sickness rages through the fleet. Events of note tend to be sickeningly unfair or tragic or disgusting or all three.
In a strange afterword, Anderson defends his choice not to be more interesting by saying that "If this were the fantasy novel it so much resembles, there would be a third volume with gargantuan, cleansing battles" and "all people would be free, shackles would fall from every wrist, and bounty would return to the land." But, since this isn't what actually happened and slavery persisted in America for generations longer, you're out of luck, reader! I would have settled for a lot less than a big fireworks party with Ewoks, but Anderson really, really wants to rub our noses in the futility of it all. Unfortunately, futility isn't very interesting.
Nevertheless, in fairness I also have to say that I kept turning all 561 pages because M.T. Anderson is too good a writer to dismiss. His dialogue is especially good, pitch-perfect for each character's class and circumstances. I want to list a few examples to show the range:
A Royalist of Lord Dunsmore's set: "Sirs, while I would liefer commend the nobility of restraint, here must I endorse rather the vigor of lively opposition… "(p. 201)
Pro Bono, a house slave: "I can't even say how deep that skunk smell is. You can keep falling through parts of that smell and there are other parts, whole other rooms and wings you ain't known about. That is one devilish power of a smell." (p. 228-229)
Octavian, sui generis: "Did you need speak of Dunmore's doubts? Did you need tell us he was foolish and uncertain? . . . You spake thus, sir, to vent wit, so that you might regale us with the acuity of your observations." (p. 208)
Also, buried beneath all the novel's oppression and despair are some awfully good character portraits, the affecting story of Octavian learning more about his mother, and lovely tid-bits like fables and stories, the odd newspaper story or official proclamation, and the like. I still admire M.T. Anderson, just not this book.
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