Kindred

This is a really powerful novel about race and, the potential self-destructiveness of some interdependent human relationships. It is also a time travel novel, a genre of which I am always a fan.

Dana is a young black woman in California married to Kevin, a somewhat older white man (though, as if testing our assumptions, her husband's race is not mentioned nearly a fifth of the way through the novel). Dana is transported, initially on her own, back in time from the present day of 1976 (the novel was published in 1979) to a plantation in Maryland in 1815 (though she does not realise she has travelled in time until her second, and longer visit). Her time slips are connected to the activities of a red-haired boy and later young man, whom show more she realises on her second trip is her ancestor Rufus Weylin, who had children with a black woman Alice Greenwood. It becomes apparent that the timings of Dana's appearances in the past are linked to threats to Rufus's life (drowning, dying in a house fire, falling from a tree, etc. as per the chapter titles), while her returns to the present are caused when her own life is threatened, either by Rufus himself or by his callous and casually brutal father Tom. In this way, Dana and Rufus are locked in a perpetual hate - (almost of a sort) love relationship across time, each dependent on the other, Rufus needing Dana to save his life, while Dana needs Rufus to live to grow up and give birth to her ancestral line.

This is of course not an original science fiction idea at all, but is handled extremely well here, and enables the reader to see how a modern black woman copes with both the brutalities and banalities of slave life in the early 19th century, still some 50 years before the Civil War: the casual and severe whippings; the backbreaking and often monotonous work; the ever present threat of families being broken up; the prevention of slaves becoming literate so they cannot even imagine or bring about a alternative life. What perhaps strikes the modern reader as incongruous is the casual and matter of fact way in which the white owners act towards their slaves, sometimes not necessarily physically cruel per se, treating "their" slaves at one and the same time as possessions, work horses, wayward children or as being by instinct lazy and deceitful. The owners are of course, in their own terms, not behaving cruelly or unreasonably, in the same way that members in oppressor groups can very often behave perfectly reasonably and in a civilised manner towards other members of their group.

When Kevin is accidentally transported back with Dana, the dynamic changes, and he is able to protect her to some extent, though by the painful device of pretending they are master and slave, and not man and wife (which won't be believed). However, he is stranded in the past and separated from Dana for some five years, and to some extent becomes accustomed to life in that time as a white man largely living in the free North. They are able to reconcile themselves to each other, though with difficulty, as Dana's relationship (for want of a better word to describe this bizarre situation) with Rufus becomes more tortured. Dana and Kevin are eventually returned definitively to the present day (no spoilers about the denouement plays out).

This is a very powerful and grippingly written novel and I will read more by this author. show less

As an on-again-off-again fan of science fiction writing, I’ve known of Octavia E. Butler by reputation for years. She was, after all, inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2010, so it would probably be more surprising at this point in Butler’s long career for someone not to recognize her name than it would be for them to recognize it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that I had ever actually read her work. Then a week or so ago, Butler’s name and books were mentioned several times in segments of a video course on science fiction writing I was working my way through. Because of my fondness of time travel novels, the novel that particularly caught my attention was 1979’s Kindred.

I expected Kindred to be somewhat of a show more thriller during which a modern California black woman, a writer by trade, finds herself trying to stay alive – and free – in the Deep South during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. As it turns out, Kindred is that and much, much more.

Dana and her white husband are in the process of moving into their new 1976-Los Angeles home the first time that a bout of time-travel-inducing dizziness strikes her. Within seconds, Dana finds herself on the muddy banks of a river staring at what seems to be the lifeless body of a little white boy. Springing into action, she manages to resuscitate the boy just in time to save his life. But as she looks up to catch her breath, Dana finds herself staring into the barrel of a gun being held by a very angry man. Even terrified as she is, Dana does not have time to react before she suddenly finds herself, wet and muddy, back inside her new California home.

Dana, although she is unable to predict when it will happen, learns that she is being called back into time over and over again to save the life of one of her ancestors, the son of the same man who seemed ready to kill her when she appeared out of nowhere to save the boy’s life for the first time. Unfortunately for Dana, Rufus, a very reckless child, grows into a self-destructive drunkard as a young man – and she is the only thing keeping him alive until he can father the child with one of his father’s slaves that will keep Dana’s family line intact.

This is the science fiction/time travel premise of Kindred, but that’s about as much “science” as Butler ever offers the reader. She does not try to explain how it is possible for Dana – and anything in contact with her, including her husband, Kevin – to leap back and forth from 1819 to 1976. Nor does she ever address the usual time travel paradoxes with which fans of the genre are so familiar. Instead, this is a novel about a woman who “knows” that her ancestors had been slaves not all that long ago. Slavery, in fact, had only been dead for 111 years upon publication of Kindred, so Dana’s own great-great grandmother had been a slave. But there is a fundamental difference in knowing that your ancestors were enslaved for generations and actually standing alongside your great-great grandparents knowing that one of them is a slave owned by the other.

Dana arrives in 1819 Maryland a modern woman, one completely overconfident that her education and modern sensibilities will protect her from the harsh reality of the times she finds herself entrapped in. By the time she learns just how naïve she is, she is lucky to be alive – or not working the steaming cane fields of southern Louisiana. So, will her luck continue long enough for Rufus to father the child that links directly to her portion of the family tree or not?

Bottom Line: Kindred explores an aspect of American slavery that is seldom tackled so well in historical fiction: the different emotional effects that generations of slavery had on a people who knew no other way of life. Butler considers the ones readers most often read about, those who never lose their desire for freedom, but she gives equal time to those who manage to justify slavery to themselves even to the point of feeling almost at ease with it, what becomes for them a choice of “security” over the greater, scarier unknown out there. The author also explores the insidious culture that spawned generations of whites capable of such cruelty for over 200 years by showing how Dana’s white husband himself is unconsciously affected by his own five years of living in early nineteenth century America. Perhaps most surprising to Dana (and to readers), is how quickly she adjusts to life’s new rules and some of the things she is willing to do to make her life as bearable as possible. Octavia Butler herself did not consider Kindred to be a science fiction novel – and it’s easy to see why. show less

This was the first book by Butler that I read and I’m sorry it took me so damn long! It’s about a Black woman from the 1970s who gets repeatedly pulled back in time to the antebellum south on a planation. I don’t want to say more than that about the plot, because it deals with some pretty heavy and complex emotions and is best left to be discovered while reading.

As you might guess, this is not an easy book to read. It deals with physical violence and emotional abuse. Once the time travel gets going and I learned what the heck was going on, I was filled with such anxiety. But I couldn’t put it down! Even as I was reading difficult scenes, biting my nails, and worrying about what was going to happen to our main character, I needed show more to keep reading. This is one of those books I talked out loud to (I also do this to the TV/movies haha) and I love when books give me intense reactions like this. The characters are complex and compelling, making the story even more impactful.

I absolutely recommend this book and I want to get my hands on Butler’s Patterner series next. If you’ve been wanting to read Butler’s work, you can’t go wrong by picking up Kindred. show less

I don't read a lot of books more than once, but I think this is one I definitely will. I really love how this book jumps immediately into the story. Within a matter of a few pages, we jump right into the plot of this book. Edana (Dana) Franklin is our protagonist, and is somehow catapulted from her home in Los Angeles to antebellum Maryland. She (and we) don't realize it at first, though; she sees a child drowning and springs into action to save him. Minutes later, she returns to her living room in LA, having confused the daylights out of her husband, Kevin.

Dana is called back to Maryland six times throughout the story. On one occasion, she accidentally takes Kevin with her. On the one hand, this could have advantages since Kevin is show more white, and can pose as her master, perhaps offering her some protection. Because time moves differently--a few minutes in 1976 equates to several years in the 1800s--they end up staying there together for two months. Kevin is left behind, however, when Dana returns to their time; the eight days she spends there translates into five years... and a growing chasm between her and her husband.

This was a tough book to read. Reading about the treatment of enslaved people was emotionally taxing, though I think I should read more such accounts (fictional or non-fiction) to help remember those atrocities. As a biracial woman, a constant thought in my mind, whenever I picked it up and read a bit, was that I am so glad I was born now and not then. It was interesting--I don't typically have dreams about books I read, and haven't done for the eight other books I've read so far this year... but the night I started this I had a dream that I was Dana and was pulled back in time to the Weylin plantation.

I would love to read more scholarly works or other commentary on this story. Since I wasn't around when it was published, I'm curious what the response was. I've gotten the feeling from a few things I've read or heard that Octavia Butler was a rather obscure author for at least some of her life, so maybe there was not much about this story. But I think the context of the time in which this story was written is possibly even more important than the context of the time in which the story takes place. Dana was married to a White man, for instance. Loving v. Virginia was only 12 years old to the month when this novel was published; I'm curious what the attitude would have been. Was it set in 1976 because that's when she started writing, or was there another reason? Kevin was only with her in Maryland that one time; why did she make him White?

I was satisfied with the story, but I still have lingering questions in addition to those above. What became of Carrie and Nigel? Where did Joe and Hagar end up? Hagar in particular, having been noticeably Black, seems unlikely to have been raised by the extended family of a Maryland plantation owner who had to be convinced to free his own children--and that, only after their mother had hanged herself. Why was Dana pulled into the past, and what was the significance of it having started on her 26th birthday? Why was her arm melded into the wall on her final trip? Had others throughout history had something similar happen to them? Was her trips backward necessary to ensure her own birth all along--that she was always the one that saved Rufus in the other timelines, and preserved her own existence?

I'm also curious about her final trip, or maybe more generally how time functioned here. She was home in LA for 15 days before she had returned to Maryland, but only three months had passed in the past--unlike the time she was home for eight days, and five years had passed. I would have thought that, given she was home twice as long, that approximately ten years would have passed. So it seems like time wasn't running between these two timelines in a linear fashion, with one just moving more slowly than the other... so what pulled her backward? She clearly influenced the timeline since Alice did not give birth to her final two children with Rufus; did that somehow change things? Dana usually would end up being pulled back because Rufus had found himself in some sort of trouble. But the final time, he wasn't in physical trouble the way he had been with the fight, or the lake, etc... so what exactly brought her back that last time?

It's interesting to consider my modern-day, year-2020 lens when reading this, both with regards to the time of writing/publishing and the time of the setting. I kept seeing parallels to domestic violence since that's a much more relevant issue in current society than enslaved peoples (I know slavery still exists in some forms, but it's much more underground). Rufus even says "Dana, don't make me talk to you like that" once, and I'm sure he says something similar several times. He blackmails Dana and punishes her brutally for things he knows without doubt she did not do.

I could identify with Dana when she talked about having conflicting feelings about Rufus. I finished the book last night and I'm still surprised that he never saw the light. I kept thinking it would happen, even though throughout the book it was clear it wasn't. The feelings Rufus had for Alice weren't strictly based on his position of power as a White man over a Black woman in that time; he did have some sort of feeling of love for Alice, though it was a grotesque expression. I thought that between Alice and Dana, he would start to see enslaved people as human, as people who deserved dignity and freedom... when I started to read it, I thought Rufus would become an abolitionist. But the culture and norms of the time, and the beliefs imparted by his family, won out. I'm really disappointed that Rufus didn't grow as much as I had hoped--though I know it's much more realistic as written, and ultimately the story is better for it.

Just, wow. So much to unpack with this story. I almost wish it had been written now so that there might be a book club or something I could discuss it with (I guess that commentary I mentioned will have to do). I haven't been the biggest fan of science fiction in general, but now having read this one and listening to another of her stories on Levar Burton Reads, I'm ready to gobble up the Butler catalog. This book should definitely be on school reading lists; I'm surprised that it wasn't on mine in high school. A major contribution to not only African-American literature, but to science fiction and the pantheon of female authors, this should be considered a classic of American literature. show less

I worship at the the altar of Octavia Butler. Her books can do no wrong in my eyes, and Kindred is no different.

Dana, a black woman living in the 1970s, one day finds herself transported to the 1800s south. She saves the life of a plantation owner’s son and returns to her own time. Thus begins a punishing cycle of rescuing those who can’t seem to do anything for themselves.

Dana must figure out how to survive in the antebellum south in each return visit and what exactly her connection to the mysterious occurrence is.

This book raised so many questions about identity, ancestry, obligation, inherited trauma, and America’s dark past with slavery. I can’t thank Octavia Butler enough for leaving us with a piece of speculative fiction show more that encourages thought and critique of our past and present. show less

This book blew me away. I can't believe it's been around since 1979. It's a cross-genre marvel of a book, telling the story of a modern (1976) black woman who is inexplicably transported back to the antebellum south. Each of her inadvertent journeys is fraught with danger, physical and psychological. Butler asks questions of Dana, and by extension us, that are deeply uncomfortable. How can people tolerate seeing the abuse of others without interfering? How can people be abused over and over again and never retaliate? Brilliant book, would recommend it to anyone.

A terrible time travel story, and an excellent story about slavery. If the grandfather paradox bothers you and you want your time travel to make sense in any way this will be a challenge - you don't even get a nod toward it being just a mental trip, there are unambiguous and drastic consequences. But it succeeded as a story about slavery in not indulging in the narrative you'd expect. There's no traveling back to confront the injustices or attack them, to spread abolitionism or crush the slave states. Nor is there some personal "death before slavery" stance. Instead it's incredibly effective at transmitting a sense of helplessness, partly through the involuntary nature of the time travel that reflects a loss of control in the old world. show more “Slavery was a long slow dulling” nails the horror. It’s all just bearable enough, with brutal punishments for disobedience, to numb you into following the path of least resistance. That creeping compliance is the really upsetting part. show less