River MummaRiver Mumma

"From the Giller-nominated author of Frying Plantain comes a dazzling magical realist novel that explores the Jamaican-Canadian millennial experience According to folklore, River Mumma guards gold at the bottom of the Rio Cobre river in Jamaica. Legend states that she has a golden comb if lost, whoever returns it may be rewarded with treasure, or they will be drowned like her other victims. Alicia Carroll, a twenty-five-year-old living in Toronto, has been out of grad school for six months. She has no career prospects and lives with her mom, who won't stop texting her macabre news stories and reminders to pick up groceries. Then, one evening, River Mumma appears to Alicia, telling her that she has twenty-four hours to scour the city for her missing comb. Alicia doesn't understand why River Mumma would choose her. She can't remember all the legends her grandmother told her, unlike her retail co-worker, Heaven, who can recite Jamaican folklore by heart. She doesn't know if her childhood visions have returned, or why she feels a strange connection to her other co-worker, Mars. But when the trio are chased down by malevolent spirits called duppies, they realize their tenuous bonds to each other may be their only lifelines. As time runs out, Alicia's quest through the city broadens into a journey through the past and into the future--to find herself and what the river carries."--