As long term readers of my column know, In January of '21 I read Winter Tide By Ruthanna Emrys. Here is that review. Well, Deep Roots is the sequel.
While Deep Roots was also on my Read list last year, it was this year's read of it that I really felt the tembre of the tale. Aphra and Caleb Marsh are looking for distant relatives. Distant enough to have been missed when the 1922 raid on Innsmouth swept the entire community into internment camps. The siblins are trying to rebuild the Spawning grounds that they would not be the final generation to come into the sea.
But a group of contractors have ready money and without residents to retake family homes, the hopes are dim, indeed. The siblings fear their homes and ancestral buildings will be bulldozed to be turned into neat little rows of ticky-tacky little boxes. It is with a feeling of foreboding that the entourage goes to New York City.
Oh! Wait. Sorry. Wait. If you haven't read the books, you don't know who the entourage are. Right. Roll Call:
Aphra Marsh-Eldest on Land. She is a collector of people like the hub of a wheel. Elder sister to Caleb.
Caleb Marsh- Younger brother to Aphra, mate to DeeDee. His defining feature is his anger.
Ron Specter- FBI Agent who has recruited this team. If he were the central character these stories would be called Ron Specter and His Irregulars. A Jewish gay man.
Nikko- the Marsh's sister in adversity who craves travel and adventure. Was interned in the same camp as the Marsh siblings.
Trumbull- a lesbian mathematics professor at Miskatonic University whose body was once an unwilling host for a Yith.
DeeDee- An FBI honeypot who was once a mole inside the Dean's office at Miskatonic University. An African-American woman, she is part of Aphra's confluence, and Caleb's mate.
Charlie- Aphra's boss in the book shop, also her first student. A member of the Confluence, he is also in a very secret romantic relationship with Ron.
Audrey- a pretty all-American, blonde college student who became bound to Aphra in Winter Tide. She has magic blood and is a confluence member.
Okay.... Phew! Now that we've done the How-do-you-do-and-shake-hands thing, we can continue.
Spector gets everyone boarded at his Tante Leah's boarding house in a Jewish neighborhood. The fact that we are so close to the sumer solstice is important.
As Caleb is alread mated the siblings hope to find Cousin Freddie that he (Cousin Freddie) might be a fit mate for Aphra. It turns out that Freddie has been seduced by a coven of Migo (we learn that the polite term is Outer Ones), literally. He is in love with a disembodied being in a can. And yeah, the idea of finding a cousin to hopefully breed more children to become Deep Ones is creepy. And no one in the book is really all that comfy with the idea either.
And that is the question that Aphra keeps coming back to: With whom shall she breed, because she must. She very much feels the weight of responsibility in repopulating Innsmouth. Aside from the urge to procreat, she has no desire to bed Freddie, and he has even less desire to bed her.
The Outer Ones story line has a "not all men" vibe, that kind of goes nowhere.
Truely, even if you love the characters, there just isn't enough story here. Its a huge circle and upon second reading, a waste.
I loved getting another exploration of my favorite characters, but no one really gets an arc. We get Enochian polygyny, on a government reservation.
If you haven't read this yet, don't. I truely cannot think of anyone who would enjoy this. Sorry, Ms. Emrys, this just is not some of your best work.
⭐⭐2/5
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