Genre: Historical Fiction
Length: 264 pages
Audiobook Length: 10 hours and 55 minutes
First Published: 1979
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Rachael’s Review
In 1976, Dana, a young African-American writer, finds herself inexplicably sent back through time to a pre-Civil War plantation in Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy, she finds herself back in Los Angeles. Over and over, Dana finds herself returning to the plantation whenever the boy is in trouble, which she realizes is where her ancestors lived. As her stays in the past become longer, Dana becomes entangled in the plantation and is forced to make harder and harder choices to survive. Octavia Butler’s genre-bending novel is a must-read among time travel books.
I can see why Octavia Butler is considered one of the best writers of her generation. A genre-bending novel, Kindred combines the “what if”s of the best science fiction with deeply-researched historical fiction. Kindred is brilliant top to bottom: a gripping premise, compelling narrative, memorable characters, and nuanced themes. Butler thought-provokingly dives into the complexity of slavery’s dynamics, leaving the reader plenty to ponder on racism, both historically and today.
Publisher’s Description
Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.
Quotes from Kindred
Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger of “wrong” ideas.
Like all good works of fiction, it lies like the truth.
Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
Sometimes I wrote things because I couldn’t say them, couldn’t sort out my feelings about them, couldn’t keep them bottled inside me.
Movie Trailer for Kindred (2020)
About Octavia E. Butler
Octavia E. Butler was an African-American author whose works include Kindred, Wild Seed, and Parable of the Sower. She won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards and was the first science fiction writer to earn the MacArthur Award. She died in 2006 at the age of 58.
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