Future Down the 401
Brown Girl in the Ring
Nalo Hopkinson
New York: Warner Aspect, 1998
256 pages, $16.25
You can only approach Brown Girl in the Ring, a first novel by Toronto
writer Nalo Hopkinson, with a great deal of expectation. The winner of the Warner
Aspect First Novel contest, Hopkinson beat out over a thousand other entries to appear
in print. The result is highly original, a novel combining aspects of many genres:
set, as is science fiction, in a near future; drawing on myth as does fantasy; and
filled with a solid horror novel's share of dread. The whole is suffused with references
to Caribbean mythology, with dialogue richly evoking Creole lore, and characters
straight from African religious tradition. Despite the occasional lapses in tone
characteristic of first novels, Hopkinson's Brown Girl in the Ring weaves
together a tale both entertaining and insightful.
The titular "Ring" is metropolitan Toronto of the near future, a doughnut
of a city created by white flight into the suburbs of Etobicoke, Scarborough, and
the Yorks. Hopkinson's back-story draws on contemporary issues: First Nations land
rights; international sanctions; the relocation of big business (and ultimately political
authority) outside the downtown core of urban centers. The ring itself is populated
by figures such as Ontario Premier Catherine Uttley - a politician awaiting a heart
transplant but unwilling to accept a bio-engineered porcine heart due both to the
viral outbreaks caused by animal to human transplantation and to political spin.
It is her need for a human organ that precipitates Hopkinson's narrative, a coming
of age fable told against the background of the predation of the suburbs on the inner
city.
The action of the novel takes place not on the ring, but inside the doughnut hole,
in a post-riot inner city where terror comes not only from such mundane horrors as
feral children, violent drug pushers, and mad gangster bosses, but from the older
sources of obeah, Santeria, and voodoo. Weapons in this science fiction tale are
not high-tech machines, but the demon intermediaries of obeah religion: duppies (captured
spirits), Soucouyanta (the skinned woman), Jab-Jab (Diab-Diab - the devil) and Prince
of Cemetery (the skeletal guardian of the crossroads to life and death). The protagonist
herself is the oft-demonized scapegoat of contemporary politicians: a young, poor,
single black mother.
The Brown Girl, heroine of the story, is a young mother who's located within the
ring of a family of women: Gros-Jeanne, her grandmother the healer; Mi-Jeanne, a
seer gone mad; and Ti-Jeanne, herself prone to visions and coming to terms with the
task of surviving inside the depleted inner city while learning to nurture her baby.
Ti-Jeanne is a complex, humanly believable character: she passionately loves the
wrong man, has little patience for the seemingly pointless teachings of her elders,
and is on the verge of exasperation with a baby she bore too young. Despite this,
she is charged with not only discovering her sense of identity and self-worth, but
with saving the inner city world as well. The narrative takes place mainly from her
point of view, and while she is not always a sympathetic character, her acerbic commentary
and confessions of weakness make of her a highly believable character.
In order to save herself, her lover, her family, and her community, Ti-Jeanne must
face the wrath of Rudy, the gangster lord of inner-city Toronto who perches atop
the CN Tower. Rudy has been charged with obtaining a human heart for Premier Uttley,
and has recruited Ti-Jeanne's lover, Tony, to collect. Rudy's orders are backed not
only by his minions, but also by his mastery over his duppy, a powerful spirit who
carries out graphically described atrocities. Turning to Ti-Jeanne and Gros-Jeanne
for help in escaping Rudy, the perfidious Tony unwittingly closes a circle, for Gros-Jeanne
and her family are intimately linked to Rudy, and have been charged by their own
spirits to get rid of him. It is ultimately Ti-Jeanne who must open herself to the
forces of her grandmother's obeah religion to overcome evil. This is not to say,
however, that all solutions are mystic, for hidden within the pages of Hopkinson's
novel are some very practical solutions to urban revitalization.
Science fiction is a genre often critiqued for its overwhelming whiteness, its construction
of whitewashed future worlds, as well as its failure to include the voices of people
of colour. Brown Girl in the Ring is Hopkinson's attempt to invert the traditional
mode of such science fiction. Rather than having technology as the driving force,
folklore and mysticism are the tools of salvation. Her setting is not the stars,
but an urban centre returning to the Caribbean roots - herb lore and mythos - of
its populace. The protagonists, not the enemy, are the aliens - immigrants from various
sources, speaking the Creole and patois of their varied origins, alienated from the
mainstream.
Brown Girl in the Ring is a compelling, original, and satisfying novel. Hopkinson's
greatest achievement is perhaps in weaving the complexities of urban decay with those
of African religion, providing lucid background explanations for both without interrupting
her narrative flow. More than a new voice in science fiction, Nalo Hopkinson presents
a new direction, a new sensibility, and a strong sense of style. Brown Girl in the
Ring is a fine introduction to a writer whose coming work is highly anticipated.
Lauraine Leblanc, PhD