Blackheart Man

Veycosi, the narrator of Nalo Hopkinson’s Caribbean-inspired fantasy novel, Blackheart Man, is not a good person. He is a near-constant failure with few redeeming qualities; this is a character you may be supposed to hate (and boy did I). We are introduced to Veycosi mid-escapade: attempting to unclog the aqueducts of Carenage Town, a city on the island of Chynchin, with a phosphorus bomb. Despite the fact that he partially floods a whole neighborhood, Veycosi still believes he should receive nothing but praise. At the same time, 15 ships from Ymisen, a country that once conquered Chynchin, appear in the harbor. The rest of Hopkinson’s story features further Veycosi failures and a couple of singular successes as he stumbles through major events in a city wreathed in magic.

Chynchin’s unique culture is one of the most interesting aspects of Blackheart Man. The island’s society is matriarchal after a fashion, with family units typically consisting of one wife and two co-husbands. Only women are allowed to be sailors; men tend to take on supporting tasks such as caring for children. Science (like Veycosi’s phosphorus bomb) mixes easily with obeah, a Caribbean magic tradition that, among other things, can create people like Kaira, a “twinning child” born with no biological father, just a mother. Chynchin is populated by various groups of formerly enslaved people who banded together to defeat their conquerors. Despite that, there are certainly still lower classes, chief among them the Mirmeki, former enslaved soldiers of the Ymisen, who are relegated to physical labor. Hopkinson riffs on French-Caribbean dialect and slang, in addition to including various fictional languages, and readers who enjoy imagining different voices for characters will appreciate Blackheart Man’s plethora of distinct accents and tones.

As the political situation escalates to a breaking point and Veycosi continues on his picaresque adventures, Hopkinson reveals the shrouded, mystical history of Chynchin and its people.  However, as the entire story is told through the lens of the incredibly unreliable and frequently intoxicated Veycosi, readers are basically learning this story from the perspective of the town fool. Time skips forward without warning, and incongruities in the narrative are part of the charm; Hopkinson even includes a passage where the book halts to point out its inconsistencies. By the end of the tale, some secrets have been uncovered, but many remain mysteries. Readers ready for a wild, chaotic series of unfortunate events will enjoy seeing how badly Veycosi ruins everything.