Everfair

Starred review from August 1, 2016
In this deeply compelling debut novel, Shawl, who’s well known for her short fiction (Filter House) and teaching (Writing the Other, with Cynthia Ward), takes readers to an alternate Earth where the inhumane history of the Belgian Congo is brilliantly rewritten when Africa’s indigenous populations learn about steam power. Determined to help former slaves return to Africa, African-American missionary and Civil War veteran Rev. Lt. Thomas Jefferson Wilson forms an alliance in 1889 with Great Britain’s Fabian Society, an organization interested in creating a model Socialist utopia. Together, they buy land in the Congo from Belgian’s King Leopold II and create Everfair, a homeland for returning former slaves, foreigners searching for a better life, and Congolese natives desperate to escape Belgium’s brutal grasp. Everfair draws in a variety of characters, including adventurers, broken families, poets, and inventors. Cultures clash as ancient traditions, old prejudices, and innovative technology feed fresh, new intrigues. Shawl deftly wields a diverse cast of characters to impressive effect, taking readers from the Victorian era to WWI and its aftermath. This highly original story blends steampunk and political intrigue in a compelling new view of a dark piece of human history.

Reading with high energy, a conversational style, and the audiobook's tone of optimism, Allyson Johnson narrates this sprawling alternate history. The story asks a series of what if's. What if the Belgian Congo had not been a scene of slavery and exploitation in the late nineteenth century? And what if the nation instead had become a free and permanent home to refugee Africans from all over the world? That imaginary nation is the Everfair of this novel. Johnson deftly handles the virtual U.N. of character accents--from African and Asian to German and American--while the story is heightened by the fantastic trappings of steampunk: pneumatic machines, giant dirigibles, and prosthetic limbs, for example. A heady mix of history, Edwardian politics, and fantasy. B.P. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine