Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

From the Publisher

The rich and the privileged have fled the city, barricaded it behind roadblocks, and left it to crumble. The inner city has had to rediscover old ways — farming, barter, herb lore. But now the monied need a harvest of bodies, and so they prey upon the helpless of the streets. With nowhere to turn, a young woman must open herself to ancient truths, eternal powers, the tragic mystery surrounding her mother and grandmother. She must bargain with gods, and give birth to new legends.

Publishers Weekly

The musical rhythms of Caribbean voices and the earthy spirit-magic of obeah knit together this unusual fantasy, the first winner of Warner Aspect's First Novel Contest. Toronto in the next century is a "doughnut hole city," its core collapsed into ruinous slums after much of the population left to escape rising urban crime and violence. Those who remain in the Burn are survivors like Ti-Jeanne and her grandmother Mami, who trade herbal cures and spells for necessities, or predators like drug-lord Rudy and the "posse" of men, including Ti-Jeanne's ex-lover Tony, who sell "buff" for him. Outside the Burn, Catherine Uttley, the premier of Ontario, needs a heart transplant and a boost in her approval ratings. To accomplish both, she announces support for a return to voluntary human organ donation, allegedly to prevent the spread of Virus Epsilon, sometimes found in the porcine organs grown for transplant. The heart she needs will have to come from someone in the Burn, and Rudy saddles Tony with the job of finding a donor. Tony has no stomach for the job, however, and goes to Ti-Jeanne and Mami for help, bringing the unpredictable and powerful spirits of Caribbean obeah into play. Though the story sometimes turns too easily on coincidence, Hopkinson's writing is smooth and assured, and her characters lively and believable. She has created a vivid world of urban decay and startling, dangerous magic, where the human heart is both a physical and metaphorical key. (July)

VOYA

The city of Toronto is a wheel, with the city core as its hub, and a number of suburbs encircling the core. In this imagined Toronto, years of recession have resulted in the core's collapse. The wealthy have fled to the suburbs, leaving the poor and disenfranchised to survive as best they can. Into this vacuum steps Rudy, a Dorian Gray sort of man, who uses voodoo to control a "duppy," a powerful soul stolen from the body of a living person. With this power, Rudy thrives as an over-lord, dealing in drugs and "harvesting" body organs for the wealthy. In contrast, Gros-Jeanne is a wise-woman, who uses voodoo for healing. Gros-Jeanne and others like her are trying to restore the city by creating a community upon the rubble of the old system. Ti-Jeanne tells the story. She is a young mother who is impatient with her new duties and the old superstitions of her grandmother, Gros-Jeanne. Complicating matters is the fact that she has terrifying visions of the future. When Gros-Jeanne and Rudy wage a battle that pits good against evil, Ti-Jeanne is caught in the middle and must become a reluctant heroine. The author's characters are well-drawn: Gros-Jeanne is the charming and outwardly tough grandmother who tries to pass on her spirituality to her stubborn granddaughter. Ti-Jeanne develops from a willful child into a woman capable of assuming great responsibilities. These characters are placed against the believable backdrop of a multicultural community struggling to survive. The result is a highly readable work, reminiscent of Butler's The Parable of the Sower (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993). There were several extremely gruesome scenes probably added to emphasize Rudy's absolute corruptness; even those with strong stomachs may do the reading equivalent of covering their eyes. This promising debut is the winner of the Warner/Aspect First Novel Contest. I look forward to seeing what this author turns out next. VOYA Codes: 3Q 4P S (Readable without serious defects, Broad general YA appeal, Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).

Library Journal

In the ruined core of downtown 21st-century Toronto, a girl reluctantly embraces her heritage of spirit magic to save the lives of her child and her lover from a gang leader's evil sorcery. Hopkinson, winner of the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest for this work, draws upon Afro-Caribbean myths to provide a rich, evocative background for a classic tale of salvation and sacrifice. Smoothly written, with memorable characters, this top-quality debut belongs in most libraries.

School Library Journal

YA-An outstanding science-fiction novel by a Jamaican-born novelist. The setting is post-modern Toronto. The inner city's economic base has collapsed; the police and most of civilization have deserted and roadblocked the city, leaving the homeless, poor, and criminals behind. The heroine, Ti-Jeanne, and her infant son live with her grandmother on a small herbal "farm" from which they dispense folk-medicine treatments to the other disenfranchised inhabitants of the "Burn." The story combines African and Jamaican folklore, religion, and patois as Ti-Jeanne learns to understand the ancient spirits that are so important in her family's history. The tragedies of her mother and grandmother must be understood and corrected, and only Ti-Jeanne can do it, if she can face her own fears. A page-turner that builds to an exciting conclusion, this quickly read fantasy will have lots of appeal to young adults.-Carol DeAngelo, Garcia Consulting Inc., EPA Headquarters, Washington, DC

Kirkus Reviews

Winner of the publisher's First Novel Contest (out of nearly 1,000 entries), Hopkinson's debut evokes Afro-Caribbean magic against a near-future Toronto damaged by riots and neglect and abandoned by all but the most desperate inhabitants. The inner city is run by ruthless gangster Rudy Sheldon and his "posse." Ti-Jeanne Hunter lives with her herbalist grandmother, Mami, and her unnamed child (by Tony, one of Rudy's mob). Weak, untrustworthy Tony was fired from his hospital job because of his drug addiction. Now, Canada's premier, Catharine Uttley, has an ailing heart, and, for overwhelming political reasons, any replacement organ must come from a human donor. Word filters down to Rudy to supply the heart, and Tony gets the job: If he can't find a donor quickly, he'll have to murder someone and take the heart. Later, empty-handed and terrified of Rudy's lieutenant, Crack Monkey, Tony pleads for Mami to work magic and help him get out of the city undetected. Since Ti-Jeanne can't resist Tony's blandishments, Mami reluctantly agrees. Unfortunately, Rudy also commands powerful "obeah": Trapped in his "duppy bowl" is a ravening spirit that will do his bidding when he feeds it blood. Tony, meanwhile, finds that Mami would be a compatible donor for the heart, and, unable to escape Rudy, he bashes in Mami's head and calls the paramedics. Ti-Jeanne learns that Rudy's captive spirit is her mother—and the only way to free her and defeat Rudy is to smash the bowl. A splendid if often gruesome debut, superbly plotted and redolent of the rhythms of Afro-Caribbean speech: "You just don't let she go, or I go zap the both of allyou one time."

What People Are Saying

Octavia E. Butler
I've been telling people about Nalo Hopkinson's book....It is great.

Tim Powers
Colorful and enthralling, exotically weird and at the same time totally convincing; you don't read this book, you live in it.

C. J. Cherryh
Unusual and intriguing in concept...with all the payoffs you could hope for in a story.

DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid
The book started as an essay that Hopkinson thought would just be OK, but she got her essay published as a full-length book. I thought that was beautiful to see (aka Paul Miller, musician, writer, conceptual artist).

Product Details

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Excerpt

Mami closed her eyes and whispered a prayer. The lamplight danced on her face, filling it with shadows. She looked at the cement head.

"Eshu, is we here tonight; me, Gros-Jeanne, and my granddaughter Ti-Jeanne, and she baby with no name, and she baby father, Tony."

Tony started; looked over at Ti-Jeanne, who ignored the surprised question in his eyes. It made Ti-Jeanne mad. What Mami have to go and tell her business for?

Mami kept talking: "Eshu, we ask you to open the doors for we, let down the gates. Let the spirits come and talk to we. Look, we bring food for you, rum and sweet candy."

She took one of the candies out of the bowl, crunched it, and swallowed.

"We bring a cigar to light for you, Eshu, to sweeten the air with the smoke."

She picked up the cigar and put it to her mouth. She lit it, cheeks sucking in to draw it to life. She took a deep drag of the cigar and gently blew the smoke in Eshu's face.

"Eshu, we ask you to bring down the doors so the spirits could be here with we tonight. Spirits, please don't do no harm while you here; is we, your sons and daughters."

Mami balanced the still-burning cigar on the candy bowl. She got creakily to her feet, hooked the chicken down from the ceiling. She put the chicken on the floor in front of Eshu, and motioned to Tony to hold its wings and body. She stretched its neck out long, so that the pinny neck feathers stood up, revealing the pink pimpled flesh beneath. Then she took her kitchen knife out of the basket, and sliced clean through the sensé fowl's neck. Blood spurted in gouts fromthe headless body. Its legs kicked. It was no worse than they way they killed the fowls for their supper table, but Tony made a sick noise in the back of his throat and looked away.

"Hold, it, Tony," Mami hissed, "Don't make it run 'way! Here, give it to me."

Tony watched the grisly rite, curling his lips away from his teeth in disgust and fear. He seemed quite happy to relinquish the twitching, gushing body into Mami's hands. Mami directed the blood over the stone head. "We give you life to drink, Eshu, but is Ogun wield the knife, not we."

She laid the chicken and its head in front of Eshu. The hen's body jerked again feebly, once, then was still. The air was heavy with the stench of chicken flesh and blood.

Mami took her place on the stool, put the drum between her knees. With her fingertips and the heels of her hands, she began to beat out a rhythm. Ti-Jeanne recognised the pattern of sounds. She'd often heard that rhythm in the loud drumming coming from the chapel at nights. She hated it; it tugged at her blood, filled her head with sound until she thought it would burst from within, her skull cracking apart like an overripe pumpkin to reveal the soft, wet interior. Although Mami was rapping out the rhythm softly, the sound beat at Ti-Jeanne as loud as drums. It made her bones vibrate, her teeth ache. The small chapel was saturated with the rhythm, dripping with it. And still Mami kept drumming. Ti-Jeanne felt as though the chapel bell was chiming and gonging in time, her heart pounding to the drum, the shadows in the chapel leaping to it. Mami was rocking from side to side. So was Tony, not even seeming aware that he was doing so. He rolled up his sleeves to his forearms. Yes, it was hot now in the chapel. Ti-Jeanne could see the bufo drug slashes on his arms. Two of them looked hardly healed. She sighed, sadly. Tony was still using. Same thing they'd fired him from the hospital for.

In Ti-Jeanne's arms Baby was wide awake, his eyes alert. He looked as if he was listening, hard, with his whole self. Ti- Jeanne realised that she was swaying to the drumming too. She tried to stop herself, but her attention would waver and she'd find her body moving again.

Ti-Jeanne's focus shrunk until all she could perceive was the sound of the drumming, the sight of Mami's water-chapped fingers beating and beating their rhythm. The cadence caught her mind in a loop, spun it in on itself, smaller and smaller until she was no longer aware of her body, of her arms cradling her child. She barely knew when she stood up.

#

Trying not to retch from the thick stench of raw chicken and fresh blood, Tony sat hunched between Ti-Jeanne and her crazy grandmother. He was terrified. He could still feel the warmth of the chicken's body on his hands. He wanted to run out of there and never come back. But if he did, he'd probably run straight into the arms of the posse. His time was up. And Rudy was even crazier than Mami Gros-Jeanne. If Tony didn't get out of Toronto, Rudy's vengeance would probably make Tony wish for a death as quick as that of the throat-slit hen. Mami was his only chance. So he stayed, wrapping his arms around himself. He began rocking, rocking, praying this would be over soon.

Beside him, Ti-Jeanne giggled, a manic, breathy sound that made Tony's scalp prickle. She rose smoothly to her feet and began to dance with an eerie, stalking motion that made her legs seem longer than they were, thin and bony. Shadows clung to the hollows of her eyes and cheekbones, turning her face into a cruel mask. She laughed again. Her voice was deep, too deep for her woman's body. Her lips skinned back from her teeth in a death's head grin.

"Prince of Cemetery!" Mami hissed, her eyes wide. She kept her rhythm going, but even softer.

"You know so, old lady," Ti-Jeanne rumbled. She pranced on long legs over to Mami, bent down, down, down; ran a bony forefinger over the old woman's cheek. "Good and old, yes? Like you nearly ready to come to me soon, daughter!"

To Tony's surprise, Mami Gros-Jeanne spoke sternly, drumming all the while, to the spirit that was riding her granddaughter. "I ain't no daughter of yours. Stop the foolishness and tell me what you doing with Ti-Jeanne. You know she head ain't ready to hold no spirits yet."

Ti-Jeanne/Prince of Cemetery chuckled, a hollow sound like bones falling into a pit. He danced over to Eshu's stone head and used a long, long finger to scoop up some of the chicken blood thickening there. Slowly he licked and sucked it off his finger, smiling like a child scraping out the batter bowl. Tony's stomach roiled. "But doux-doux," Prince of Cemetery said, "Your granddaughter head full of spirits already; she ain't tell you? All kind of duppy and thing. When she close she eyes, she does see death. She belong to me. She is my daughter. You should 'fraid of she."

The old woman sucked her teeth in disgust. "Man, don't try to mamaguy me, oui? You only telling half the story. Prince of Cemetery does watch over death, yes, but he control life too, when he come as Eshu. So why I should be frighten?"

The spirit grinned wide, did a pirouette. "Well, if you know that, old lady, tell Ti-Jeanne. Tell my horse to open she eyes good and see the whole thing; death..." he stopped, seemed for the first time to notice Baby strapped to his chest. Baby stared up at him, no fear in his face. Prince of Cemetery chortled. He pulled open the velcro, took Baby out of the Snugli and held him up in the air, grinning and cooing at him. Baby cooed back.

"...and life," Prince of Cemetery continued. The words were now coming from Baby's lips. The booming deep man-voice lisped with the effort of forming words through the baby's underdeveloped vocal apparatus. "Tell she when she go out tonight, she must carry something she man give she. She must conceal it somewhere on she body. I go hide she halfway in Guinea land, where flesh people can't see she. So long as she carrying Tony gift on she, nobody go see he either. But only till sunup. Tell she that," the baby cooed, then laughed, a sound too deep and knowing for its young body.