The Wade in the Water: A Novel

Written by:
Nyani Nkrumah

Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
6
Narrator
2
Release Date
January 2023
Duration
10 hours 17 minutes
Summary
“An impressive debut. Emotionally honest with lyricism and charm to spare, Nyani Nkrumah’s Wade in the Water depicts in riveting detail a racially charged Mississippi town, the secrets it holds, and the precious heart and soul of a young girl deserving love.”—Diane McKinney-Whetstone, author of Our Gen and Tumbling

“Fearless. . . . Vividly bring[s] to life rural 1980s Mississippi.”—People

“A dreamy, brutal, and revelatory reading experience that quickens the pulse and tugs the heart.”—Diane McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning Carry Me Home

Resonant with the emotional urgency of Alice Walker’s classic Meridian and the poignant charm of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, a gripping debut novel of female power and vulnerability, race, and class that explores the unlikely friendship between a precocious black girl and a mysterious white woman in a small Mississippi town in the early 1980s.

Set in 1982, in rural, racially divided Ricksville, Mississippi Wade in the Water tells the story of Ella, a black, unloved, precocious eleven-year-old, and Ms. St. James, a mysterious white woman from Princeton who appears in Ella’s community to carry out some research. Soon, Ms. St. James befriends Ella, who is willing to risk everything to keep her new friend in a town that does not want her there. The relationship between Ella and Ms. St. James, at times loving and funny and other times tense and cautious, becomes more fraught and complex as Ella unwittingly pushes at Ms. St. James’s carefully constructed boundaries that guard a complicated past, and dangerous secrets that could have devastating consequences.    

Told in two voices, Ella’s and Ms. St. James’s, and set around richly developed characters, this riveting, page turning coming of age story will keep readers entranced until the last shocking revelation.  
Reviews
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Latoya L.

My, my, my....this book was something. To a blind man, color means nothing but...... I read this book in 2 days. Ella, a fatherless child, is being raised by her mother and her 2 siblings. Her mothers husband, Leeroy, is taking advantage of her without her mother knowing. Her father is from Ghana and left to go back, but the town's people goddip that she is the pastors love child. Her mother got really sick, and Leeroy abandoned the family. He sent her little sister off and took the money she had to get a nurse and got an apartment in town with another woman. The hunting of Black folk, the killing of Ms. Kate Saint-James fiance Carl because her father found out he was Black despite his looks( fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes). Sooooooo, she thought she could clear her name by changing her name by living and interviewing amongst Black people. Her past was revealed through a little girl, Ella. She befriends Ella and gains the Black communities' trust. However, She was just as bad as her father, because at 15 she killed a boy to prove to her father she's just like him. The incident at the lake was the start of bringing up her past along with that damn journal. Like whyyyyyy would you write about you and your families crimes and tote it around, ughhhhhh. Ella began to revered herself as beautiful and smart when she used to look down on herself. I must say this book had me hooked from beginning to end. I told you too much in this review. However, it's much more to know, just get it and read. #Book6of2023 #Bookworm #Whatsnext

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