As an expression of an identity complex deeply rooted in the memory of transcolonial trauma, Crossing the River interrogates Paul Gilroy's "Black Atlantic". The narrative of the novel follows the dispersive and connective logic of the desire for recognition that drives the American Colonization Society to ease its conscience by offering emancipated slaves a second chance outside a nation hostile to their integration. However, our re ection aims at highlighting that this "integration" takes place in a subversive and introjective mode that puts the rhetoric of salvation in the background and the power of paternal desire in the foreground.