Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Boulder Public Library Librarian

Author:   Sue Monk Kidd

Genre:  Historical Fiction, Fiction, History

384 pages, published January 7, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

The Invention of Wings, which is based on real people, tells the story of two girls in early nineteenth century Charleston.  Hetty “Handful” Grimke is a slave who works in the wealthy Grimke household with dreams of freedom.  Sarah Grimke idolizes her father who is a judge and wants to follow in his footsteps but is subject to the restrictions and expectations of that era placed on women. On her eleventh birthday, Sarah is given ownership of Handful and she tries in vain to free her, but promises Handful’s slave mother that she will someday accomplish this mission.  Over the next 35 years, both Handful and Sarah endure disappointment, loss, sorrow, and betrayal, but continue courageously on and discover their destiny in the process. Sarah, along with her younger sister, Angelina, becomes an abolitionist and feminist.  

Quotes

“My body might be a slave, but not my mind. For you, it’s the other way round.”

 

“We ‘re all yearning for a wedge of sky, aren ‘t we? I suspect God plants these yearnings in us so we’ll at least try and change the course of things. We must try, that’s all.”

 

“I saw then what I hadn’t seen before, that I was very good at despising slavery in the abstract, in the removed and anonymous masses, but in the concrete, intimate flesh of the girl beside me, I’d lost the ability to be repulsed by it. I’d grown comfortable with the particulars of evil. There’s a frightful muteness that dwells at the center of all unspeakable things, and I had found my way into it.”

 

“I’d been wandering about in the enchantments of romance, afflicted with the worst female curse on earth, the need to mold myself to expectations.”

 

“The sorry truth is you can walk your feet to blisters, walk till kingdom-com, and you never will outpace your grief.”

 

“It has come as a great revelation to me,” I wrote her, “that abolition is different from the desire for racial equality. Color prejudice is at the bottom of everything. If it’s not fixed, the plight of the Negro will continue long after abolition.”

 

“A slave was supposed to be like the Holy Ghost—don’t see it, don’t hear it, but it’s always hovering round on ready.”

 

“To remain silent in the face of evil is itself a form of evil.”

 

“If you must err, do so on the side of audacity.”

 

“I’d chosen the regret I could live with best, that’s all.”

 

“I longed for it in that excruciating way one has of romanticizing the life she didn’t choose.”

 

“How could I choose someone who would force me to give up my own small reach for meaning? I chose myself, and without consolation.”

 

“I said, “Where’s all that delivering God’s supposed to do?”

He snorted. “You’re right, the only deliverance is the one we get for ourselves. The Lord doesn’t have any hands and feet but ours.”

“That doesn’t say much for the Lord.”

“It doesn’t say much for us, either.”

 

“Her name was Mary, and there ends any resemblance to the mother of our Lord.”

 

“He that finds his life shall lose it, and he that loses his life shall find it.” Do not fear to lose what needs to be lost.”

My Take

I had previously read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and enjoyed it, but liked The Invention of Wings even more.  With layers of detail on the place, time and characters, Kidd creates a world that feels immediate and real.  She also tells a compelling story that is interwoven with historical details about the Antebellum South and the movement for Abolition and Women’s rights.  I highly recommend The Invention of Wings, especially the audio version.