Title: KindredAuthor: Octavia E. Butler
Pages: 295 pages
Published: First published June 1979
Source: Library
GoodReads Description: "Octavia E. Butler's 1979 masterpiece and ground-breaking exploration of power and responsibility, for fans of The Handmaid's Tale, The Power and Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing. With an original foreword by Ayòbámi Adébáyò.
In 1976, Dana dreams of being a writer. In 1815, she is assumed a slave.
When Dana first meets Rufus on a Maryland plantation, he's drowning. She saves his life - and it will happen again and again.
Neither of them understands his power to summon her whenever his life is threatened, nor the significance of the ties that bind them.
And each time Dana saves him, the more aware she is that her own life might be over before it's even begun.
Octavia E. Butler's ground-breaking masterpiece is the extraordinary story of two people bound by blood, separated by so much more than time."
Dana is an unwilling time-traveller. She is called from California, 1976 to the antebellum South of 1815. The son of a plantation owner does the calling, causing her to travel back through time whenever he finds his life in danger. But by traveling to this time, her own life is in danger.
Kindred is a classic. It is a book that will stick with me for a long time. I've never read that many books about the antebellum South, but I know that there are a lot of romances set in this time period. That it is romanticized and written with the silver lining added and all the history removed. There are few diseases, few real problems, and few people of color. This book did something to my Golden Age Syndrome - not that this time period was my Golden Age - but it just held up a mirror to my face and made me realize - in all times past - it wasn't the Golden Age for everyone.
This book is important. Important because it was the first science fiction book written by a black woman. Important because it helps those who read it to understand this part of history in a way that makes it feel personal. A modern woman (well, it's the 1970s, but still modern especially in comparison) gets thrown back into that time period and she sees it similarly to how we would see it now - and it is so backwards and so terrifying. It is not romantic.
But aside from being important, this book was just good! I really loved it. The characters were complicated and real. Dana cares about Rufus - even though he's awful, even though he has and exerts such power over her. And she's not the only one on the plantation that feels that way. The setting was detailed and realistic - not always beautiful and definitely not convenient. The story wasn't convenient. It was overall pretty heartbreaking. But so good.
The book begins with Dana coming back without her arm. "In an interview Butler has stated that the meaning of the amputation is clear enough: 'I couldn’t really let her come all the way back. I couldn’t let her return to what she was, I couldn’t let her come back whole and that, I think, really symbolizes her not coming back whole. Antebellum slavery didn’t leave people quite whole.'"
MY RATING:
Story: 5
Characters: 5
Overall: 5 stars!
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