Review: The Invention of Wings

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A book which stays with you well after you have read it.

A story about the Grimke family and their slaves – in particular tracing the lives of Sarah Grimke and Hetty “Handful” in Charleston. Not surprisingly the 19th century is a period where slavery is the norm. Since her childhood – Sarah finds this grossly unfair. She is assigned Handful as her slave and makes attempts to help her – she teaches her to read and write for instance. They are soon found out and both are punished. Sarah's own ambitions of practicing law make no headway either – that is not what women at that time could aspire for.

Handful's mother Charlotte works hard to save money (at times taking risks by working extra hours) in the hope that she can buy their freedom in future. Sarah finds solace and purpose in being the godmother of her sister Angelina, who shares many of her ideals. The risks Charlotte takes leads to her having to run away from the Grimke household. She is united with Handful after many years, by when she has a second daughter “Sky”.

While the years elapse, what does not change is Sarah's conviction that slavery is unfair and must end. She finds others who share her ideals, including her sister Angelina. In the midst of tremendous suffering, and at times tragedy – there is also hope held by determination and conviction.

Other the brilliantly etched characters, the book scores for it's tremendous attention to detail – building an extremely realistic picture of the times. The research which the author describes in the afterword are very evident all through the book. I did not initially know that Sarah and Angelina Grimke are real characters – the fictional characters of the slaves in the Grimke household blend in excellently in the narrative.

The realism in this book reminded me of another excellent book - Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, though the stories are vastly different otherwise.

This book leaves it's impressions which stay – the characters, the pain of the period and a reminder that what is assumed a normal practice is not necessarily right and some brave people who can leave their conditioning aside can make the difference.

I would ideally rate the book at 4.5, only because the pace of the book slows in parts around the middle.


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