by 
What Took Me So Long?
All book lovers do this crazy thing. Because they love books and stories, they have a ton of books they haven’t gotten around to reading. I’ve had Kindred by Octavia E. Butler for ages, years.
Not reading Kindred as soon as I bought it was a big mistake. It turns out I love this book. I mean I really love it. If you’re read time travel books and like them, very few can compete with Kindred, well The Devil’s Arithmetic is excellent.
Brief Summary
Dana and Kevin, her husband, are a happily married mixed-race couple, living in Los Angeles in 1976. Things go terribly wrong when Dana is ripped out of her time and taken to a plantation in Maryland in 1815. While there, she saves a little boy, Rufus, who is her great-great-grandfather. I may not have enough greats! The boy is her anchor to the past, and his need pulls her back in time.
Her first trip is short, and she’s only gone a few minutes. But each time, she stays longer and returns to her time after some life-altering event. Time in the past clips along faster than our current time.
Dana, a black woman without papers in the South, is automatically seen as a slave. Although she’s educated, her skin color defeats her at every turn. She tries to escape, but can’t escape the culture or the repercussions of her actions.
Each trip back becomes longer and the dangers increase. At one point, Dana holds on to her husband and pulls him back with her. When she’s pulled back into her time, Kevin isn’t with her and is trapped in the past.
She’s anxious to return to get him. When Rufus pulls her back again, days have passed for her, but it’s been five years for Rufus and her husband. Kevin has left the plantation and is in Boston. When they are finally reunited, Dana discovers that Kevin is changed. The barbarity of Southern life has permanently scarred him.
The Power of Kindred
The book is gripping, emotional, and rooted in reality.
When Dana learns Rufus is an ancestor, I immediately thought he was a man who lived above the culture of his time, but as Dana is pulled back to Rufus, his behavior is typical of slave owners. I wanted him to change and become the man I imagined, but he didn’t. As the years pass, he becomes more and more like his father and those around him. I think the power of this story is the reality and harsh truth that culture and mores help shape people. Those who rise above their culture are the exceptions.
As I became more acquainted with life on the plantation, with the position of field slaves and house slaves, with the brutality of slave owners and slave overseers, I found myself experiencing life through Dana’s experiences. That life becomes reality, more so than 1976 because Dana spends little of the book’s time in her present world.
The beauty of Butler’s style is that although I’m white, I could easily relate to Dana, and so when she travels back in time to 1815, her experience on the plantation becomes mine. It’s the kind of story that stays with you long after you close the book.
For me, the power is in the story of those on the plantation and their limits. This isn’t Tara of Gone with the Wind. It’s real. Not just the dangers, but everyday life. The moments of hope mixed with the horrors that such a culture brings.
Dana is limited in how she can respond, and yet, her relationship with Rufus gives her some freedoms she wouldn’t have had. Late in the book, a reader learns that her relationship with Rufus also colored and shaped the way the other slaves saw and judged her.
The time travel and how it works is never explained, which worked for me. It just happened. Readers know it is Rufus who pulls her back. Each time he’s either near death or has gotten himself into deep trouble, and Dana saves him. While the people on the plantation age, Dana doesn’t. She might be home for hours or days before she is pulled back again, but time on the plantation moves forward until Rufus’ death.
The Negatives
Okay, I love this story so much, that I dismiss the negatives some people bring up, but here’s a list of some critiques.
1) Dana is surprised at the racism. Critics point out that as a black woman, she would have experienced racism in 1976. I agree, she would have, but I was born and raised in and near Los Angeles. Even in 1976, an educated person in Los Angeles wouldn’t experience the “in-your-face” kind of racism found in this book. From my experience growing up, I didn’t have a problem with Dana’s reactions to racism.
2) Dana didn’t do anything to change the time or the people. This critique surprises me. Would we really want someone going back in time and mucking around with history? Dana focused on Rufus and tried to influence him to become a better man. As it turns out her efforts were a lost cause. Kevin helped slaves escape to freedom. For me, these are two ordinary people who have to find a way of living in a “foreign” land. If they started spouting prophecies about the future or trying to invent future technology, who knows what would have happened to them and the future.
3) Some people complain they didn’t know Dana was black. The cover sort of gives it away without the author telling us on page one.
Okay, I’m being a little snarky. I’m that way when someone criticizes Firefly too.
Last Thoughts
Go read the book!
The Usual Reminders
If you enjoyed this post, please share it. You can use the links at the top or below the post. Thanks!
