E-book, 287 pages
English language
Published Sept. 11, 2008 by Beacon Press.
The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given...
Important book which takes you on a wild journey on a plantation. Great reminder that knowing something and feeling it are two very different things.
Incredibly written for a book. It is amazing to think it was written in the 1970s. The story is just captivating, characters so realistic, and the time travel elements very well done. I learned about slavery growing up but never in this way and in so much detail. Dana describes it well when she witnessed the past vs watching it in media, or reading about it in a history textbook. While the story is fictionalized the events described are very real and you find how insidious slavery was and how it not only became normalized in the 1800s. It did not shy away from black bodies being a human currency and the words and treatment alike slaves and "freed slaves" were subjected to. No one is safe. It is a systemic issue that still exists today and while we have made great strides, the effects have still rippled through time. …
Incredibly written for a book. It is amazing to think it was written in the 1970s. The story is just captivating, characters so realistic, and the time travel elements very well done. I learned about slavery growing up but never in this way and in so much detail. Dana describes it well when she witnessed the past vs watching it in media, or reading about it in a history textbook. While the story is fictionalized the events described are very real and you find how insidious slavery was and how it not only became normalized in the 1800s. It did not shy away from black bodies being a human currency and the words and treatment alike slaves and "freed slaves" were subjected to. No one is safe. It is a systemic issue that still exists today and while we have made great strides, the effects have still rippled through time. Very powerful book and well worth the read. Looking forward to later reading more of Octavia Butler's books! Just amazing writing.
Content warning Minor plot information
Octavia E Butler published Kindred in 1978, but started writing it a couple of years earlier. So it's coming up for its 50th anniversary, but it honestly doesn't feel like it.
By using the device of (inadvertent) time travel to send an intelligent, educated middle-class 20th century Black American woman into the Southern USA before the Civil War, Butler tries to bring the horrors and cruelties of slavery to the attention of readers who might not otherwise go near a history book.
Obviously everyone knows that slavery was terrible, but the book really focuses your mind on how arbitrary decisions made by a slave owner, almost on a whim, could rip families apart and result in brutal punishment for minor offences or even none at all.
Rather than being a more Hollywood-esque "triumph of good over evil" story, it actually shows the main character becoming more and more accepting of her fate as time goes on, as she realises that any attempt to beat the system is futile. But at the same time, by bringing her 20th-century sensibilities to people who might at times be cruel but are (for the most part) not intentionally sadistic, Dana also manages to slightly improve her lot as well as those of the other enslaved people in the household.
I'd definitely recommend the book. The prose is easy to read but never superficial, and the plot moves along at a fair old pace. My only real criticism is that there is no satisfactory explanation for why the two main characters' lives suddenly become intertwined across 150 years of separation. It's really just a plot device to bring in the main story and as such, although this is often classed as a science fiction novel, I don't think it really fits into that category.
A relatively quick read, this time travel story is more historical fiction than science fiction.
A groundbreaking book for the author and the times, it is filled with symbolism and morality.
This story has a strong female character with flaws and growth.
I found the ending a bit muddled. We never find out if the main character has changed history.
I often write book reviews by writing several statements about the story and shuffling them into the right order. With this tale, the statements don't really fall into line, and perhaps that is the best review of this book. It is groundbreaking but not great, important but not awesome, and in the end, worth reading. For me this was the last of a challenge to read one book from each year of the 70s, in order. Of those 10, only [b:The Dispossessed|13651|The Dispossessed|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1353467455s/13651.jpg|2684122] was better.
