Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson

First published in 2000, Midnight Robber was the second novel by Nalo Hopkinson, the Caribbean-born Canadian writer who won the 1999 John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer of the Year. Her first novel, Brown Girl in the Ring won the Locus Award for Best First Novel.

Midnight Robber was a finalist for that year’s Nebula, and also made the final Hugo ballot –losing out Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It therefore ended up being the only novel to be on both ballots, and in the end won neither.

The planet Toussaint has been colonized for over two centuries by the Marryshow Corporation. The Marryshevites live in a multicultural society, though one that is primarily Caribbean; omnipresent nanomites forming the gestalt 'Granny Nanny’ moderate behaviour, but this is still a vibrant, fully-realised vision of a future culture as unlike traditional Anglo-Saxon Science-fictional futures as could be imagined.

Antonio, the mayor of Cockpit County, returns home early one day to find his wife in the arms of another man. Despite his wife’s conspicuous remorse he moves out. After a long period of training Antonio challenges his cuckold to a duel. However, when he breaks the rules of the duel he is sentenced to exile on the world of Half Way Tree.

Half Way Tree is a world of isolated communities under quasi-feudal rule, of deep almost impenetrable jungle and strange creatures. His daughter Tan-Tan accompanies him into exile, for Midnight Robber is really her story. The story turns darker as her father systematically abuses her – and when Tan-Tan is placed in an impossible position, she has little choice but to flee and assume the persona of The Robber Queen of the novel’s title.

As the story progresses Tan-Tan dispenses justice while striving to come to terms with herself, and it becomes impossible to determine whether the stories are driving Tan-Tan to emulate the legend, or whether she is creating her own story in which she risks becoming trapped.

The book opens with and is interspersed with separate little stories, and when the meaning of these are gradually revealed they assume an appropriate relevance (not always the case with sub-texts).

Hopkinson also portrays her supporting characters well, and the vengeful stepmother is a well-drawn antagonist, until the end. The theme of Carnival provides a strand linking the first part of the novel with the end, and it is during the Carnival that the final confrontation takes place.

Midnight Robber is an inventive novel, full of twists and turns and surprises –at some points almost too much so. The novel really only takes off when Antonio and Tan-Tan are exiled – up until that point the story Tan-tan’s parents rather than hers. However, the most difficult aspect of the book is the thick patois that suffuses the novel. Many may be deterred by it, but perseverance does pay off in the end: The patois eventually gives Midnight Robber its unique identity.

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