Creatures of Passage, Morowa Yejide, author
Using the past and the present, the author has written a novel that will hold the reader spellbound until the end. It is difficult to read, dark and often without hope, which held me back from reading it quickly. However, read on, because it is worth it, and there is a more hopeful ending.
This spiritual, mystical, supernatural, psychological exploration of race and racism takes place in a world in which magic exists and the people and the spirits roam sometimes aimlessly, seeking satisfaction and a place that they belong. Oftentimes, they are unable to find it, the living and the dead, alike. When twins, conjoined at the tip of the index finger are separated, their future is sealed. They will always feel each other in some way, always feel incomplete when alone, and they will possess some odd, supernatural abilities.
Osiris and Nephthys Kinwell, twins named for a mythical god and goddess, are tasked with living up to their namesakes. Nephthys will ferry people to destinations and Osiris will travel through the underworld. When Osiris leaves this world before Nephthys, when he is unjustly murdered for a crime he never committed, but as a black man had no justice when accused by a white woman with a jealous husband, Nephthys finds it hard to go on and begins to frequent the bars to forget her grief. Her only solace is doling out candy to those in need of a sweet to calm them; she, a woman who never had children, comforts those who need it. Twins have a special bond that joins them, their physical, their mental and their emotional states are tied, and one without the other often feels incomplete.
A series of events steers Nephthys to “Find Out’, who knows all. He realizes he has a car with her name on it. It is a special vehicle. It never needs gas. It knows where it has to go without the driver’s input. It has a resident white girl ghost in the trunk. Suddenly, with her brother dead, and with no body to bury, with his spirit wandering and searching for his place, Nephthys becomes the one who brings salvation to many lost souls needing secrecy, needing solace or simply searching for the spirits of their loved ones, dead or alive.
Osiris had been happily married to Gola. They produced a child that was born as Gola lay dying from a hit and run accident. The child is called Amber. In the afterlife, As Osiris wanders, he takes vengeance on all those who have caused his death, Gola’s death and his unhappiness. His daughter, Amber, is a strange girl, preferring her own company, is placid and seeming to know things, is wise beyond her years. People avoid her because she has visions of impending death, and they always come true. She is powerless to stop them or provide enough information to help someone else stop them from happening. It is known as “the lottery”, and she provides the information published by the journalist. Needless to say, people avoid her, because her prophecies seem to be ordained.
One day, a stranger named Red appears at her door, and they both find peace from their own troubles, she from her visions and he from his own visions of death when he was a soldier during the Vietnam War. When he suddenly leaves, with no warning and no forwarding address, her dreams return. Amber discovers she is pregnant. She has a child and names him Dash. Red knows nothing about him. There is no way to find him. He too wanders, but in this upper world of ours. When Amber dreams of her own child’s impending death, she is powerless to help him. A wolf’s need is awakened within her. When an incident, at the school that Dash attends, prompts the school nurse to contact Nephthys, she returns to “Find Out” and asks for his help in finding, Red, Dash’s father. He might be able to help save the child. There is someone evil hidden in the school, someone corrupted long ago by someone in the church he attended.
Anthropomorphism, therianthropy, the supernatural, magical realism, past and present racism and racist behavior, military combat and PTSD, pedophilia, white supremacy and privilege, poverty and hopelessness, loom large on the pages of this book, and all embrace the reader in a cacophony of sound and conflicting emotion, even when the pages are seemingly silent and the message unknowable. A magical car, a woman who predicts death, a deceased twin who materializes for his grandson, ghosts and people with second sight and other unnatural gifts, carry the reader forward as they also carry the inhabitants of Anacostia, a community in Washington, DC, in the 1970’s, as they go about their daily life.
What do the characters symbolize? Are white and dark skinned people represented equally? Is one more unjust than another? Is the true picture of today represented on these pages or is today a result of what was told on these pages? We carry our memories of trauma with us, we are scarred by them until they are resolved, no matter how long it takes, in life or in the afterlife. Is there hope for society, in the end, or are the same-old, same-old issues recurring over and over, doomed to remain unresolved. There is corruption, injustice and violence in all places, even in the Church.
The author has lit up our world with its warts and foibles. She has shown us, subtly, uses mundane themes, ordinary objects, even lemonade, to imply to the reader that the world is easily misconstrued, people are capable of evil and others are easily wronged. Do we all have “the beast” within us?