The Invention of Wings : A Novel
by : Sue Monk Kidd
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"Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk
Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and
the desire to have a voice in the world—and it is now the newest Oprah’s
Book Club 2.0 selection.
Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave
in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the
suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household.
The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant
to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits
imposed on women.
Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on
Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old
Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys
over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own,
dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex
relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways
of love.
As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful
will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the
process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love,
and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her
fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the
abolition and women’s rights movements.
Inspired by the
historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh
out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and
invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts
danger in her search for something better.
This exquisitely
written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving
eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose
struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no
reader unmoved."