IDs: Neurodivergent, Black, Queer, Genderqueer, POC, Mentally Ill

Author IDs: Black, Nonbinary, Queer, Neurodivergent, Disabled, Mentally Ill

CWs: Mentions of race-based violence, death, enslavement, kidnapping, and torture

The Deep imagines the story of the descendents of pregnant African women thrown overboard while on the Middle Passage. The women themselves drowned in the sea, but their children were born underwater, and became water-dwelling, mermaid-like people called the wajinru. The novella is based on a song of the same name by the rap group clipping., who were themselves inspired by techno-pop duo Drexciya.

The narrative follows Yetu, the historian for the wajinru community. The wajinru people’s memories “faded after weeks or months—if not through wajinru biological predisposition for forgetfulness, then through sheer force of will” (Solomon et al 5). Only Yetu, as the historian, has memories that will not fade. She is responsible for remembering not only her entire life, but her entire community’s lives, and all of their ancestors. Yetu carries the entire history of her people, all of the violence and trauma and death, so that everyone else in her community can forget. 

Yetu’s role as the historian is immensely draining, both physically and emotionally. Yetu doesn’t just remember the past; she becomes physically immersed within it. She finds herself submerged in the past for days or weeks at a time, with no idea where her body is or what it is doing in the now. She becomes unstuck in time, existing physically both in the past and in the present. When she emerges from these episodes, she is often starving and exhausted, having not eaten or slept in days or weeks. Yetu is also neurodivergent. All of the wajinru can “sense” the ocean around them to some extent, but Yetu is hypersensitive. Yetu feels every movement, creature, sound, etc. within miles of ocean around her. She quickly becomes overstimulated, and this overstimulation carries into her “rememberings” of the past. 

The Deep follows Yetu as she leaves her community during “The Remembrance,” an annual ritual in which the historian shares “the History” with all of the wajinru. Together, they experience the “rememberings,” and the burden is lifted from the historian. However, once the ritual ends, the historian takes all of the memories of the past back until the next year. This year, Yetu flees while “the History” is dissipated between the wajinru. She is thus relieved of the burden, and the waijinru will only forget once she returns and takes back "the History." After swimming for miles, Yetu finds herself in a tide pool, where she befriends some “two-legs,” including a woman named Oori. Oori is a fisherwoman, and the last of her people, all the others having been wiped out by disease. Oori and Yetu reflect on what history means, and whether or not embodying the past is the way to carry that history on. 

Solomon et al explore temporality in a number of ways in this novella. Yetu’s physicalized experience of the “rememberings” challenges a linear understanding of temporality, as she is literally transported back into the past. She embodies different people or perspectives during these “rememberings,” emphasizing her role not as an outsider observing history, or even as a person from the future taking part in the past, but as a part of the past in its own right. The novella is told in a nonlinear fashion, moving between past and present fluidly and without hesitation. Solomon focuses on generational trauma and the ways that pain transcends linear temporality, particularly for members of the African diaspora.

Discussion Questions

1. How does Yetu’s hypersensitivity impact her role as historian? What is unique about hearing the History from her perspective? 

2. What is this novella saying about generational trauma, history, and time? Is Solomon advocating for a nonlinear temporality? Or just stating that such temporalities exist?

3. How does The Deep explore embodied temporalities? 

4. How does the novella’s origin parallel its themes of community, time, and history?