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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Rating = 3.5 stars
Aw, hell. How am I supposed to rate this? There's some powerful writing here, but the structure of the novel prevents it from gaining much momentum. Each chapter is devoted to one or two of Hattie's children, and after they get that one chapter, they're mostly abandoned for the remainder of the novel. Each character has to be introduced and developed within the space of one long chapter, never to be heard from again (mostly) once their time in the spotlight has passed.
Adding to the discontinuity are the long time gaps between chapters. You get "Philadelphia and Jubilee" in 1925, followed by "Floyd" in 1948, then "Six" in 1950, and so on. Instead of a novel, it begins to feel like a series of interconnected stories, with one or two characters binding them all together. Hattie is the only character we can connect with throughout the entire book, and often that connection is from a distance.
Does this mean I didn't enjoy the book? No. Ayana Mathis is a mighty fine writer. She seems to write from a place of understanding the hearts and minds of a people whose history offered them limited options, often resulting in self-destructive behaviors.
In 1923, Hattie moves to Philadelphia as part of the Great Migration, when many Southern black people moved north hoping to escape abuse and poverty. The absence of Jim Crow laws allows her greater dignity and freedom from fear, but financial success eludes her. Her husband is a hard-drinking, gambling, womanizing scoundrel, but she can't resist him in the bedroom. So baby after baby after baby arrives. Hattie is so busy just trying to keep them fed and clothed and out of trouble that she doesn't think to give them the warmth and affection they crave. Each chapter shows how that life of poverty and apparent hopelessness infects each child with a certain poverty of spirit.
What Ayana Mathis does masterfully is show how removal from oppression does not automatically lift the feeling of being oppressed. At the end of the novel, Hattie observes:
"Here we are, sixty years out of Georgia, a new generation has been born, and there's still the same wounding and the same pain."
Healing takes more than a generation, and the work is still upon us.
This has no bearing on the story, but I found it interesting and effective the way Mathis uses references to food to illustrate the various skin tones. She describes people with skin the color of liquid caramel, clover honey, milky tea, nutmeg, and cinnamon. And Hattie, who could have "passed," has skin "the color of the inside of an almond." I'm so pale that I practically glow in the dark, but when I look at my skin, it's not really white. The closest I could get, using a food reference, would be the inside of a Yukon Gold potato. Appetizing, ain't it?
Aw, hell. How am I supposed to rate this? There's some powerful writing here, but the structure of the novel prevents it from gaining much momentum. Each chapter is devoted to one or two of Hattie's children, and after they get that one chapter, they're mostly abandoned for the remainder of the novel. Each character has to be introduced and developed within the space of one long chapter, never to be heard from again (mostly) once their time in the spotlight has passed.
Adding to the discontinuity are the long time gaps between chapters. You get "Philadelphia and Jubilee" in 1925, followed by "Floyd" in 1948, then "Six" in 1950, and so on. Instead of a novel, it begins to feel like a series of interconnected stories, with one or two characters binding them all together. Hattie is the only character we can connect with throughout the entire book, and often that connection is from a distance.
Does this mean I didn't enjoy the book? No. Ayana Mathis is a mighty fine writer. She seems to write from a place of understanding the hearts and minds of a people whose history offered them limited options, often resulting in self-destructive behaviors.
In 1923, Hattie moves to Philadelphia as part of the Great Migration, when many Southern black people moved north hoping to escape abuse and poverty. The absence of Jim Crow laws allows her greater dignity and freedom from fear, but financial success eludes her. Her husband is a hard-drinking, gambling, womanizing scoundrel, but she can't resist him in the bedroom. So baby after baby after baby arrives. Hattie is so busy just trying to keep them fed and clothed and out of trouble that she doesn't think to give them the warmth and affection they crave. Each chapter shows how that life of poverty and apparent hopelessness infects each child with a certain poverty of spirit.
What Ayana Mathis does masterfully is show how removal from oppression does not automatically lift the feeling of being oppressed. At the end of the novel, Hattie observes:
"Here we are, sixty years out of Georgia, a new generation has been born, and there's still the same wounding and the same pain."
Healing takes more than a generation, and the work is still upon us.
This has no bearing on the story, but I found it interesting and effective the way Mathis uses references to food to illustrate the various skin tones. She describes people with skin the color of liquid caramel, clover honey, milky tea, nutmeg, and cinnamon. And Hattie, who could have "passed," has skin "the color of the inside of an almond." I'm so pale that I practically glow in the dark, but when I look at my skin, it's not really white. The closest I could get, using a food reference, would be the inside of a Yukon Gold potato. Appetizing, ain't it?
Geeeeeez. This novel is like "Lemony Snicket Takes On The Great Migration." I can't remember the last book I read with this little light in it.
interesting snapshots of separate but linked lives in random moments in time. read like short stories.
The book was OK. It was very well written but there is no real continuity between the stories and is more of a book of short stories. She writes really well but every story is sad.
Actually this is a 3.5, I wanted to like it enough for 4 stars but I just couldn't do it.
Much like Homegoing, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is family saga told over the generations of a family and each chapter is dedicated to a different member of Hattie's family, making it feel much like a collection of short stories than a novel. The difference here is that The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is much smaller in scope and Ayana Mathis is able to dedicate more time to revealing protagonist Hattie Shepard's personality through each of the children's story. Because of this much more intimate approach, I was able to get better acquainted with the characters and better immerse myself in the story, although it is often a heart-wrenching tale.
With a poetic voice, Mathis weaves a tale of a family struggling to rise up from oppression. It's hard to summarize The Twelve Tribes of Hattie without giving too much away due to its format, so hopefully it'll be enough to say that Hattie leaves behind Jim Crow Georgia only to find herself shackled to a unfulfilling life with husband August and her eleven children in Philadelphia. Hattie's frustration and angry at her lot in life seems to be passed on by blood to her children, as each of them struggle in their own way to free themselves of their own oppression.
With a poetic voice, Mathis weaves a tale of a family struggling to rise up from oppression. It's hard to summarize The Twelve Tribes of Hattie without giving too much away due to its format, so hopefully it'll be enough to say that Hattie leaves behind Jim Crow Georgia only to find herself shackled to a unfulfilling life with husband August and her eleven children in Philadelphia. Hattie's frustration and angry at her lot in life seems to be passed on by blood to her children, as each of them struggle in their own way to free themselves of their own oppression.
This was for sure a 4.5 star so I rounded up because I know this is one of those books I’ll be thinking about down the road. The synopsis doesn’t give this book justice; each chapter was a story all its own and I loved the way they interconnected along with the timeline aspect of the book. I’m not really sure how to word it but this was a story that touched on so many subject matters. Race & class predjudice, LGBT characters, mental illness, death, religion, and the list goes on. It was however overall the story of a family and how the people in our lives shape who we are. I highly recommend it.
I just finished this book and it was okay, I could maybe bump it up to 2.5 stars. Parts of it I really liked - the concept, the difficult life of Hattie revealed by through the stories of each of her children/grandchildren. However, I never really felt like I got to know any of the characters fully and the book was somewhat disjointed as it switched from narrator to narrator.