The Invention of Wings: A Novel
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. On her eleventh birthday, Sarah Grimke 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. 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. 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.
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Amazon.com Review
In the early 1830s, Sarah Grimke and her younger sister, Angelina, were the most infamous women in America. They had rebelled so vocally against their family, society, and their religion that they were reviled, pursued, and exiled from their home city of Charleston, South Carolina, under threat of death. Their crime was speaking out in favor of liberty and equality and for African American slaves and women, arguments too radically humanist even for the abolitionists of their time.... [Kidd] discovered that in 1803, when Sarah turned 11, her parents gave her the "human present" of 10-year-old Hetty to be her handmaid, and Sarah taught Hetty to read, an act of rebellion met with punishment so severe that the slave girl died of "an unspecified disease" shortly after her beating. Kidd knew then that she had to try to bring Hetty back to life.... Long after you finish this book, you'll feel its courageous heart beating inside your own. -- Mari MalcolmProduct Details
| Recommended Age | Adults |
|---|---|
| Author | Sue Monk Kidd |
| ISBN | 0143121707 |
| Publication Date | May 5, 2015 |
| Publisher | Penguin Books |
| Language | English |
