(Viking/Penguin offered me The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd, an Oprah book club selection for review)
I grew up in Washington, D.C. still very much a
southern town in my early childhood.
I remember accompanying my beloved Corinne Griffith (who worked for my
family) to her segregated part of the beach because I preferred her company.
Even then as a tiny girl, I felt the risk of defying convention. I brought
those memories with me to read this story of Sarah and Hetty - an heiress and
her slave in the city of Charleston, South Carolina in the early 1800’s.
The book is an expertly researched fictionalized
version of the life of Sarah Grimke and her sister Angelina, who rebuffed their
upbringing and religion to become notorious as the first female abolitionists
speaking and writing in favor of liberty and equality not only for slaves but
for women.
Where the novel diverges from the true story is, for
me, it’s heart. Here the story is
of two girls and two families. Sarah’s family, powerful
and wealthy withdraw any support for her realization and ridicule her ambitions.
Hetty’s mother, with neither power or funds to support her, instills a grim
strength in Hetty to never succumb to captivity or part with one iota of
herself.
This is an emotional book filled with symbols and
spirits and outcomes that make the reader weep. Ms. Kidd shows us what has to
be the truth of owning another human being - the fear of losing the power leaches
all humanity out of the owners and allows them to rule with blind cruelty.
No comments:
Post a Comment