In the summer of 2010, Small Beer Press published Karen Lord’s debut novel Redemption in Indigo. Using the West African folktale “Ansige Karamba, the Glutton” and related elements from Caribbean culture as a springboard, Lord concocts a new tale that retains the base of a timeless fairy tale spiced with notes of magical realism and permeated with theological speculation on choice and redemption. With multiple award nominations and wins, the book brought Lord quick recognition.
Like most folktales, the plot of the novel is fairly simple but encompasses a lot within it. An excellent cook named Paama has left her gluttonous fool of a husband Ansige and returned to her parent’s village. Ansige hires a tracker to find her and then goes to the village, where his hunger proceeds to get him into difficult positions from which only Paama’s generous nature can extricate him. Paama’s strength and resolve attracts the attention of Patience, a powerful djombi, or undying one. Without knowing its nature Paama receives from Patience the Chaos Stick, an object that holds some of the power of another djombi, the indigo lord called Chance. Using the stick to stir her pots of food, Paama’s natural talents end up altering possibilities in life in the village for the good. Adding into the mix of the chaos is yet another djombi, the spider and Trickster known as Ajit who observes and pokes the situation for his own amusement. The indigo lord wants his power back, but can only get it by persuading Paama to return the Chaos Stick in free will. One simple act by Patience sets in motion self-discovery for one human looking to assert independence, and one undying one whose outlook has been darkened by the worst he has observed in humanity.
Redemption in Indigo largely completes the character arc of Paama, but only begins the changes occurring to Chance the indigo lord. It works as a complete story on its own, not absolutely requiring any sequel despite making clear that more discovery and revelation is sure to come for Chance (and Ajit.) But Redemption in Indigo ends leaving an open question of how exactly an undying one can find redemption.
Understanding the importance of that question requires one to know the basics of what Lord’s djombi are and what they aren’t. Neither deities nor immortal, the djombi nonetheless have powers not available to humans and have existence in space/time distinct from other mortals. The segmentation of Chance’s power into the Chaos Stick indicates other divisions of the djombi being that are possible. And unlike humans who experience a past – present – future in strictly linear terms, the undying ones largely exist outside of time in a state where causality becomes convoluted. Yet, unlike angels (which appear in Unraveling that follows Redemption in Indigo), the djombi enjoy freedom of will.
These qualities of the undying ones make the concept of redemption an interesting one. What does redemption look like for one where past, present, and future intermingle? Is redemption possible for an undying one as for a human? These are the questions Chance finds himself being forced to wrestle with upon the conclusion of Redemption in Indigo. In a prolonged interaction between Patience and Chance near the end of the novel Lord both concludes this particular story while also foreshadowing what is still to come for the indigo lord.
Their conversation begins with allusions to Dostoevsky as Chance voicing regret for his crimes and a desire for punishment that will allow things, in his mind, to be righted. Patience considers the indigo lord’s request and poses a question:
‘…But what is the purpose of punishment?’
He paused for a long while to consider this. It suddenly struck him that he was being tested.
‘To restore the one who has erred to the former position of trust and authority.’
‘To write out the fact of your disobedience? Try again,’ she scoffed.
He mused a while longer, feeling small and slightly panicked as he did so. ‘Payment? Restitution?’
‘And again, you speak of things that will clear your debt. Suppose your debt can never be cleared. What then?’
Patience’s responses frustrate the indigo lord, and given the grace he sees given to humanity, Chance bitterly murmurs:
‘Redemption and mercy for them, but not for us.’
Patience sighed. ‘You are being so difficult.’
She continues, clarifying what has now occurred to the indigo lord through his experiences with Paaama and trying to explain how redemption is not closed off to the undying ones, despite Chance’s assumptions:
‘I think this unusual woman has done more than shame you. She has taught you something about how to be vulnerable.’
He looked at her angrily, but she raised a hand in protest.
‘I did not say “weak”. I said “vulnerable”. Is that such a terrible thing?
He subsided, but only slightly. ‘No terrible, no, but it is just another word used to describe the human condition.’
She shrugged. ‘Your opinion. But we have strayed very far indeed from the topic at hand. We have to decide what is to be done with you. Restitution is beyond your ability; redemption is, in your opinion, not an option for our kind; so I offer you a third possibility–rehabilitation…’
He bowed his head, and said humbly, ‘What would you have me do?’
‘What you are already doing. Trust in more than your own power. I have shown others the way to redemption, and I can show you.’
Lord completes Redemption in Indigo indicating what is necessary for redemption, as Patience states to the indigo lord and the Trickster: “You must be reborn.”
The epilogue of the novel reveals this literally transpired, but leaves unanswered exactly how this situation will permit redemption, how that concept is unique from punishment, and how it all relates to free will, even for a being existing outside of time and in a multiplicity of space. The answers to those questions by Lord are left dormant for almost a decade until the publication in 2019 of the sequel Unraveling.
Marketed as a stand-alone novel within the Redemption ‘series’, Unraveling enhances and completes Redemption in Indigo while also standing as its own contained work as well as the first novel stood on its own for nine years and still today. Though it shares an overlapping thematic core, Unraveling presents itself as a very different kind of novel compared to its predecessor. Gone are the structures and vibe of fairy tale and the linear adventure of a protagonist from a character’s point-of-view. Where Redemption in Indigo reads folksy, and frequently comical, Unraveling turns more into the subgenre of dark urban fantasy, with shades of a mystery police procedural added into a shadowy mix. Lord constructs the story as a labyrinthine exploration across dreams and realities, beyond the normal (human) flows of time and space.
The difference in tone and construction between the novels first lies in the focus on humans versus undying ones. Both novels deal with each type of being, but while the first focuses perspective upon human Paama, Unraveling turns its gaze squarely on undying ones Chance and Ajit. Secondly, Unraveling takes the background theme of the first novel and dives fully into the theological rabbit hole, explored within the context of these beings outside of space/time.
The secondary human character joining the indigo lord on his journey to realizing redemption is Dr. Miranda Ecouvo, a forensic therapist who has been instrumental in capturing a serial killer in the City. But while Miranda believes this case of seven murders to have been cleared, she has a disorienting near-death experience involving a doppelgänger that throws her outside of her world into other realms and introduction to Chance and Ajit. Following the events of Redemption in Indigo, Patience has incorporated the two undying ones as fraternal humans, but find themselves enlisted by the angel Uriel to look into Miranda’s file of the case, and the likelihood that true power behind the killer was an undying one on the quest for immortality.
Turning an ordinary urban fantasy – police procedural mashup on its head, Lord puts the mechanisms of the investigation in the hands and tools of the undying ones, with Miranda along for the ride as they try to unravel the truth through literal and figurative mazes of time, memory, and quantum probabilities. Through this all the title of the novel works with double meaning as the characters themselves must unravel. The ‘mystery’ of the killer or even the details of the plot never the serve as the main emphasis for Lord or the reader. Unraveling ends of being about the grand ideas that the maze-like exploration allows everyone (character and reader) to experience.
With echoes of Madeleine L’Engle, Lord uses elements of fantasy and science fiction to tackle the big theological questions the first novel set up through the more conventional fairy tale framework. Beyond the already mentioned theme of redemption, Unraveling also delves into questions of power and responsibility, particularly getting at the theological question: Why doesn’t Power just simply change things so bad things don’t happen?
At one point, Chance observes to Ajit: “I’m not sure either of us fully understands what power is.” By this point Chance has moved on from seeking punishment for his crimes, and is further on the journey to embodiment of redemption. His working out nature of the power could take more time, but Lord offers some suggestions through the character of Patience, and in relation to the nature of the undying ones and any attainment of immortality. Chance explains to Miranda: “…To be truly immortal, one must die, and thus go beyond all boundaries.” (Hence why immortality is not possible for the purely undying one.) Perhaps the corollary would then be that to be truly powerful, one must give up power… Again, the vulnerability that Patience explains in the first novel.
Within the theme of redemption, Unraveling depicts what Patience fully meant with her statement “You must be reborn” at the close of Redemption in Indigo. Lord aptly titles this final part of Unraveling “Metanoia”, a remaking. For a being outside of time, can redemption ever be fully achieved, or is it something ongoing, always being remade? Is it actually any different for a human?
I could talk on about so much in the two Redemption novels in their relation specifically to Christian theology. However, it’s important to note that Lord is not writing allegory here as C.S. Lewis did with the Narnia books, and there is no a priori reason to limit Lord’s work as an exploration of theology for any one single religion. The concepts can be broadly applied.
The reissue of Karen Lord’s Redemption in Indigo and Unravelling in new editions from Del Rey in 2024 gives readers a chance to experience the two works together as a cohesive whole in beautiful new editions. Those of you who listen to the Skiffy & Fanty podcast may have already heard the interview that Shaun and Brandon did with Karen about these new releases and her thoughts on the Redemption work as a whole. Though I wasn’t able to take part in that conversation, I’m looking forward to hearing all their thoughts now that I’ve had a chance to read these novels and think about more about them. There is much to delve into, beyond what I could simply write here. So I only hope that you will take the first opportunity you have to discover or revisit them.
