After a disappointing book club selection in January (I am still wincing from James Patterson’s Witch and Wizard series), my book club rebounded with The Invention of Wings, an exceptional novel about friendship, slavery, and the abolitionist movement fueled by two sisters from Charleston, South Carolina. We’ll be discussing the book in a few weeks, and I suspect everyone will swoon over this one. I started raving today with Kaitlin, just to get some practice.
I loved Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees but then abandoned her follow-up novel, The Mermaid Chair. With her 1-1 record I was lukewarm about this book choice, even though Oprah put it on the map last year for her book club. Turned out Oprah knew what she was doing. I read it in four days–smokin’ fast for me. Maybe smokin’ fast for anybody.
Kidd based the book on real people and events. There actually were two Grimke sisters from Charleston who grew up in a slave-holding family and became some of the first and most intense voices for abolition and women’s rights. Sarah, the older sister, received a slave on her 11th birthday and promptly returned Hettie, or Handful, as she was known to her fellow slaves. Handful’s emancipation was denied by the elder Grimkes, but Sarah offered her another sort of freedom. She taught her to read, which got everyone in trouble.
Chapters switch off between Sarah and Handful, which gave me a foothold in each character’s life. I could easily imagine the fine home Sarah shared with her large family, with its palmetto trees and fragrant gardens. Handful took me inside the room she shared with her mother, a seamstress for the family, who stitched an autobiographical quilt by candlelight after her duties were done for the day. I was there beside her while she looked out the second-story window to gaze upon the sea or evade the mistress’s wickedly accurate gold-tipped cane.
Although Sarah grew up in a privileged home, she was bound to the customs and conventions of the early 19th century. She loved to read and debate the law with her father and brothers, but there was no way for a woman in the Old South to become a lawyer. Her rebellious attitudes about slavery made it difficult for Sarah to make friends or attract suitors so when she had the opportunity to go North to help nurse her father back to health she did—and stayed away for years.
There’s so much more to this novel than I can relate here. More trouble and heartache for Sarah and Handful. More colorful characters. More suspense. More sadness. More frustration. More anger. But there is also great faith and determination and resourcefulness and a giant yearning for freedom. It will make your soul take flight.
Reading, Reviewing and Ranting 