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A review by christinecc
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
A total powerhouse of a book.
Without getting into spoilers beyond, say, the first chapter: our main character Dana is a young black woman in her twenties, living with her husband in the 1970s. One day, without warning, she feels ill and suddenly slips into the past, where she saves a young boy's life. Turns out she went back to Maryland during the early 19th century, which is... not a great place to be, particularly if you are not white and there are plantations nearby.
Over multiple trips, Dana gets to know the boy, named Rufus, whose father owns the plantation. I won't get into it more than that, but the big takeaway for me was the author's depiction of the main character's experience in the past, and how you can never understand an experience until it happens to you. The book shows us how Dana, who admits she used to judge the house slaves who (to her) seemed complacent and complicit with their slavers, comes to understand the choices these people made under the constant and real threat of danger and the strange, toxic dynamic where the persecuted and persecutors can't survive without each other.
The book also highlights similarities (just similarities, mind you, since the situations are not identical) between a slave who endures the unimaginable to survive and a woman whose partner beats her. Dana's cousin tells her she would never allow a man to hit her, but we know that the psychology and experience of domestic abuse is more complicated than "allowing" someone to hit you. That's pretty close to what Dana comes to understand by the end of the book. You can't capture that psychology in a single sentence. It's too horrific and complex. And as the book continues, and as Dana (in her own words) forgives those who brutalize her (specifically the boy Rufus), I realized I couldn't understand Dana, but I knew WHY I couldn't understand her. The same way Dana couldn't understand people in her situation before. It happens before we can notice it and before anyone can stop it.
Recommended as an incredible story, regardless of whether you read science-fiction or historical fiction, with a lot of trigger warnings for distressing violence, slavery & racism, and sexual assault, but it's never gratuitous, and Butler reportedly set the story in the Northeast because she knew things were even more violent farther down south and she didn't think a general audience could stomach the horrific reality (and, to her credit, she absolutely refused to tone down a depiction of slavery in the south, so Maryland was the compromise).
Without getting into spoilers beyond, say, the first chapter: our main character Dana is a young black woman in her twenties, living with her husband in the 1970s. One day, without warning, she feels ill and suddenly slips into the past, where she saves a young boy's life. Turns out she went back to Maryland during the early 19th century, which is... not a great place to be, particularly if you are not white and there are plantations nearby.
Over multiple trips, Dana gets to know the boy, named Rufus, whose father owns the plantation. I won't get into it more than that, but the big takeaway for me was the author's depiction of the main character's experience in the past, and how you can never understand an experience until it happens to you. The book shows us how Dana, who admits she used to judge the house slaves who (to her) seemed complacent and complicit with their slavers, comes to understand the choices these people made under the constant and real threat of danger and the strange, toxic dynamic where the persecuted and persecutors can't survive without each other.
The book also highlights similarities (just similarities, mind you, since the situations are not identical) between a slave who endures the unimaginable to survive and a woman whose partner beats her. Dana's cousin tells her she would never allow a man to hit her, but we know that the psychology and experience of domestic abuse is more complicated than "allowing" someone to hit you. That's pretty close to what Dana comes to understand by the end of the book. You can't capture that psychology in a single sentence. It's too horrific and complex. And as the book continues, and as Dana (in her own words) forgives those who brutalize her (specifically the boy Rufus), I realized I couldn't understand Dana, but I knew WHY I couldn't understand her. The same way Dana couldn't understand people in her situation before. It happens before we can notice it and before anyone can stop it.
Recommended as an incredible story, regardless of whether you read science-fiction or historical fiction, with a lot of trigger warnings for distressing violence, slavery & racism, and sexual assault, but it's never gratuitous, and Butler reportedly set the story in the Northeast because she knew things were even more violent farther down south and she didn't think a general audience could stomach the horrific reality (and, to her credit, she absolutely refused to tone down a depiction of slavery in the south, so Maryland was the compromise).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, Slavery, and Violence
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Rape, Suicide, and Self harm
Minor: Body horror