Avatara is the name Avey’s Aunt Cuney chose for her. Avatara has been called to pass along the culture from one generation to the next by Cuney, who has performed that role. Cuney appears in Avatara’s dreams to call her back to a remembrance of her ancestors. Marshall writes the story of Avatara’s movement away from and back to her cultural roots by using several techniques. She divides the novel into four parts to describe the stages of Avatara’s journey, and she uses images and symbols that are peculiar to the feminine creative experience. While Avatara progresses from one stage to the next, Marshall recounts Avatara’s dreams, which are often detailed memories of past experiences that may have been either personal or communal. These memories have relevance to the present when Avatara notices the resemblances between the ceremonial rituals she witnessed as a child and those she observes at Carriacou. Marshall’s references to literary selections written by black writers from the United States are apt expressions of black experiences that occurred on slave ships in the Caribbean and in the collective consciousness of black people regardless of their geographical location.

In the first section, “Runagate,” Avatara is escaping her bondage to the materialism represented by the luxury liner, the Bianca Pride (bianca is Italian for “white”). She has been dreaming of her trips to the Landing with Cuney. There was a serious ceremonial air about the journeys past the woods, the church, and the homes that held the histories of black people in America, and Cuney would take Avatara to the place where the stories begins. Cuney wore two belts, as the other old women did when they went out. One belt cinched the waist of their skirts, and the other belt was “strapped low around the hips like the belt for a sword or a gun holster.” People believed that this belt gave the women strength.

“Sleeper’s Awake” and “Lave Tete” are the second and third sections of the novel. The Ibos knew that black people would suffer in America, so they returned to Africa. For thirty years, Avatara has avoided thinking about the connections between her life and those of black people who suffered during civil rights demonstrations or those of women who endured abusive marital relationships. Avatara’s acceptance of middle-class American life has separated her from her people, and that separation has manifested itself in psychological discomfiture and physical illness. She must awaken from an anesthetized existence, but before she can be reborn, Avatara’s body, soul, and mind must be cleansed.

The voyage to Carriacou upsets Avatara, and she begins vomiting. More than a reaction to the schooner’s movements, Avatara is suffering from the pains of her new self’s birth. Avatara’s body is racked with waves of nausea. “She might have fallen overboard were it not for the old women. They tried cushioning her as much as possible from the repeated shocks of the turbulence.” After a while, Avatara is left alone in the schooner’s small deckhouse, where she is reminded of the accommodations slaves had during the Middle Passage. Her suffering pales by comparison.

The setting in this novel is dominated by an image of water that functions in several ways. Water is the vehicle for Avatara’s journey aboard the cruise ship and later on the schooner that takes her to Carriacou. Water and boat transportation are central to the experiences of black people. Ibos came to America on a slave ship. Out-islanders traveled to Carriacou on boats. Blacks in New York took an annual excursion up the Hudson River. Water is also the symbol...