Alicia, the Protagonist of River Mumma is not having the best time. Her life is not going as well as she would like it to, she’s in a job she hates, and her college degree is not getting her the opportunities she hoped for. Also, she’s at a party and is the most wall hugging wallflower to ever hug a wall due to a combination of stress and depression.
Then things get wild. On her way home from the party, she meets River Mumma, a Jamaican river goddess. The goddess’ comb has been stolen by a tourist and she wants Alicia to get it back, or else. How she’s meant to do this when she has no leads and is constantly under attack from duppies (evil spirits) and is–aside from some inherent spiritual talent–pretty ordinary is not exactly clear. Alicia is joined on her quest by two work-acquaintances, Heaven and Mars (short for Marcus), with various levels of enthusiasm and/or reluctance.
The trio wander around Toronto, get stuck in traffic and become extremely late for work. They also argue a lot about a great deal of things, but eventually get their acts together. In the process, Alicia learns that that there are specific reasons why she was chosen to find the comb, and gradually achieves a certain amount of wisdom and self-knowledge. (As often happens when you get sent on a quest.)
I found this novel to be a little slow in places. There is a lot of squabbling and impatience as Alicia and company get stuck in traffic, encounter evil spirits, and receive increasingly annoyed phone messages from work and relatives. I did like the way Alicia slowly realizes that she has a closer friendship with her two coworkers than she thought she had. I also liked the interactions between the characters and the references and uses of Jamaican history, folklore and spiritual beliefs. The dialog might be a little hard to parse: most of it is in the Jamaican Patois, except when one of the characters is code-switching. (A glossary would have been helpful.)
I really liked the book, which has a lot of of wit and humor to it. There are some very fun moments as things get increasingly dire for the trio. I liked the character interactions, and while the squabbling could get irritating, it really did fit in with the underlying concept of “these are more or less ordinary people and they’ve been sent on a magical fetch quest with very little knowledge and no leads.”
I particularly liked this book because it does some interesting things with the urban fantasy subgenre. The setting somewhere between “magic is secret and under the surface of things” and “magic is blatant and as present as cars and refrigerators.” (Though in this case it’s not so much hidden as wilfully ignored.) The themes of this book are tied to colonialism and cultural appropriation, and the narrative does a good job of integrating the themes with the main plot. I recommend this book for anyone who might like an African Diaspora themed urban fantasy with ordinary characters being nudged (herded, drafted, harassed) into doing extraordinary things.
This review is based on a galley copy received from NetGalley.
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