A Best Book of 2021 by NPR and The Washington Post
Part graphic novel, part memoir, Wake is an imaginative tour de
force that tells the "powerful" (The New York Times Book Review) story
of women-led slave revolts and chronicles scholar Rebecca Hall's efforts
to uncover the truth about these women warriors who, until now, have
been left out of the historical record.
Women warriors planned and led revolts on slave ships during the Middle
Passage. They fought their enslavers throughout the Americas. And then
they were erased from history.
Wake tells the "riveting" (Angela Y. Davis) story of Dr. Rebecca Hall,
a historian, granddaughter of slaves, and a woman haunted by the legacy
of slavery. The accepted history of slave revolts has always told her
that enslaved women took a back seat. But Rebecca decides to look
deeper, and her journey takes her through old court records, slave ship
captain's logs, crumbling correspondence, and even the forensic evidence
from the bones of enslaved women from the "negro burying ground"
uncovered in Manhattan. She finds women warriors everywhere.
Using a "remarkable blend of passion and fact, action and reflection"
(NPR), Rebecca constructs the likely pasts of Adono and Alele, women
rebels who fought for freedom during the Middle Passage, as well as the
stories of women who led slave revolts in Colonial New York. We also
follow Rebecca's own story as the legacy of slavery shapes her life,
both during her time as a successful attorney and later as a historian
seeking the past that haunts her.
Illustrated beautifully in black and white, Wake will take its place
alongside classics of the graphic novel genre, like Marjane Satrapi's
Persepolis and Art Spiegelman's Maus. This story of a personal and
national legacy is a powerful reminder that while the past is gone, we
still live in its wake.
