An Unkindness of Ghosts is the debut novel of Rivers Solomon which was published in 2017. It is a science fiction story engaging the trope of a vessel escaping the ravages of an apocalyptic threat facing the earth which spans multiple generations due to the serious treatment of the time and distance it would require for humans to reach even the nearest heavenly body capable of sustaining life as we know it. Beneath the surface of its science fiction foundation, the story develops into a metaphor for racism in general and the American institution of slavery before the end of the Civil War more specifically.
The story is set aboard a spaceship called Matilda which becomes a microcosmic version of slavery-era Dixie. This is metaphorically true as well as geographically. A division of class is arranged according to ship levels. Those known as the upperdeckers are the power elite which starkly resembles that of patriarchal antebellum America. The lower the deck, the lower the status, and the lower the status, the fewer white males one can expect to find. As one should probably expect, the protagonist of the story originates on the lowest of the low and is a person who is just about as unlikely to enjoy success as possible. Aster is a minority among minorities within a minority. Imagine the worst possible combination for someone enslaved during America's first century. Then add problematic issues related to gender, sexuality, and personality that even in the third century of the country's existence persist as obstructions to merely existing.
The Matilda has itself been zooming through space for a few hundred years in search of a Promised Land where Aster, who has amazingly enough managed to become a physician mainly through sheer will and a remarkable ability to withstand abuse, is discovering some of the darker secrets aboard this ark. To give an idea of just how significant the slavery metaphor is to the narrative, the lowest of the low decks is known as the Tarlands and is occupied entirely by dark-skinned people barely eking out what might be called little more than existence. Meanwhile, the uppermost of the upper decks are the futuristic spaceship version of antebellum plantations. Make no mistake, the slavery metaphor controls the narrative. There is a story to be told, but everything that occurs happens within the thematic milieu in which the book examines the concept of racism as a systemic evil infecting everything within a society built upon the dependence of a caste system.
The figure that is essentially in charge of the entire ship is known as the Sovereign and it is the questionable death of the holder of that position that sets the plot in motion. The relative benevolence of the Sovereign is replaced by the unquestioned malevolence of an Aster-hating figure called the Lieutenant. The ascension means trouble for Aster who must deal with abuses unknown during the reign of the Sovereign. As sometimes happens, however, the elevation of a figure of evil is also the spark that allows the oppressed to begin coalescing into a resistance. Aster has a personal stake in this change of circumstances having to do with the murky circumstances surrounding the suicide of Aster's mother twenty years earlier.
The symbolic connection between the narrative and the horrific history of American slavery is made tangible throughout the book. Only someone raised in a state outlawing the teaching of the history of slavery could read the book without making the connection. That connection is both metaphorical and literal. Those calling the Tarlands home are subject to systemic abuse at the hands of the privileged classes above. The destination of Matilda is pointedly referred to as the Promised Land because it calls to mind the gospel spirituals that originated during the slavery era and referred to life without bondage as a promised land. Of course, for most slaves, this promised land could only arrive in the form of death as a release from the abuses made lawful in the Confederate states.
Since the tie between actual history and the fiction of the story is so taut, the book can often be harrowing. Aster comes to lead resistance and rebellion against the upper deckers, but the narrative does not shy away from the violence directed toward such real-life analogs. It is no easier for those occupying the Tarlands to overcome than it was for either slaves or their descendants living with Jim Crow laws and systemic racism within a host of supposedly reputable institutions. Adding another layer to the story of stark class divisions and a culture of prejudice against minority groups are the multiple aspects of Asher that diverge sharply from the mainstream in both sexuality and gender politics.
The Matilda is unquestionably a metaphor for the antebellum American South before emancipation and the abolition of slavery. As noted, only someone educated within a system dedicated to whitewashing America's history of enslavement could fail to make this connection. What makes the book resonate in the memory afterward, however, is the eventual realization that Matilda also seems uncomfortably relevant to modern America both below and above the Mason-Dixon Line.
