River Mumma

Alicia is reaching a quarter-century crisis. With an expensive, unused graduate degree, a dead-end retail job, and a shared home with her mother, who keeps texting her memes and strange news from the internet, she feels adrift. Then one night she meets the Jamaican water deity River Mumma, who tells Alicia she must retrieve her hair comb in the next 24 hours or risk the world’s water supply. Tasked with this unbelievable quest, Alicia will face down Jamaican spirits (“duppies”), failing urban transit, and her own lack of connection to others while searching for the tourist who took the comb. Alicia must learn to trust herself, her heritage, and her friends to find this magical artifact before it is too late. The combination of Jamaican patois with the Toronto setting and references may make the story seem niche, but the themes of ancestry and diasporic identities will hit home for many.