The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

The backstory: The debut novel of Ayana Mathis, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, was one of the spring 2013 that excited me most. When Oprah picked it as her second Book Club 2.0 read and pushed up the book's release date, I moved it to the top of my queue.

The basics: The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is the life story of Hattie Shepherd. It spans from 1925 to 1980.When she fifteen, Hattie, her mother and sister moved from Georgia to Philadelphia. There she married soon after and gave birth to twins: the first of many, many children.

My thoughts: The first chapter of this novel is devastating and heart-wrenching and still somehow hopeful. Both of Hattie's twins are sick with pneumonia in the middle of the night. Mathis shifts from the current show more minutes to Hattie's memories beautifully. In the second chapter, however, the action shifts, both in time and narrator. Suddenly it's 1948, and Hattie's son Floyd is a musician traveling through the South. My understanding of this novel shifted, and I expected to read a chapter from the point of view of each of Hattie's children, thus coming to understand her as a mother and as a woman. In time, though, Mathis shifts back to Hattie.

One consequence of this narrative structure was it's disjointedness. I never truly got a feel for this novel as I was reading it, but upon further reflection, particularly of the stunning final chapter, I did. At times it felt like a collection of linked stories. While Hattie was a part of all of them, in each story the reader glimpsed into the life of one of her children, most of whom were only previously mentioned in passing. While Hattie weaved through all of the stories, her children did not.

While this novel is the story of Hattie's life, it's also a commentary on the Great Migration:
"He thought of the South as a single undifferentiated mass of states where the people talked too slow, like August, and left because of the whites, only to spend the rest of their lives being nostalgic for the most banal and backwoods things: paper shell pecans, sweet gum trees, gigantic peaches."
There's also an extreme sadness to this novel. As I read about more and more of Hattie's children, I couldn't help but think, "him too?" or "her too?" Can no one in this family catch a break in life? This darkness is crucial to Hattie and her views on life and religion:
"Hattie believed in God's might, but she didn't believe in his interventions. At best, he was indifferent. God wasn't any of her business, and she wasn't any of his. In church on Sundays she looked around the sanctuary and wondered if anyone else felt the way she did, if anyone else was there because they believed in the ritual and the hymn singing and good preaching more than they believed in a responsive, sympathetic God."
Favorite passage: "It seemed to him that every time he made one choice in his life, he said no to another. All of those things he could not do or be were huddled inside of him; they might spring up at any moment, and he would be hobbled with regret."

The verdict: The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is a difficult novel in many ways. As a novel of the Great Migration, it is hinged on a hope we know will fail, and taking the journey of a generation's disappointment is depressing. Still, Mathis is a bold and lyrical writer. The first and last chapters will stay with me for quite some time. show less

In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a show more nation.

Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life.
An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream, Mathis’s first novel heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction show less

It is very likely that Ayana Mathis has already written one of the best books you’re likely to read this year. Covering the years from 1925 when she arrives in Philadelphia from Georgia to 1980, the first chapter of the novel reveals wound that drives Hattie to be so fierce with her children. At seventeen years old, “only a child herself, utterly inadequate to the task she’d been given,” Hattie quickly has to deal with August, her frequently roaming husband, and a houseful of children. She becomes almost the textbook definition of Tough Love, fierce, terrifying, single-minded in her determination that her children survive. Mathis' writing is so accomplished, her voice so strong and self-assured, it is hard to believe that this show more is a first novel. With The Twelve Tribes of Hattie she has created a near-perfect debut about an imperfect family. show less

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, in fact I read it in a day.
Hattie is 16 when she marries 17 year old August. The novel opens when Hattie and August's first children, twins Philadelphia and Jubilee, are 6 months old. Both Hattie and August have emigrated, as part of the great migration, to the north.
Hattie comes from wealthier lighter skin blacks, her father owned the only 'Negro' business in town before he his death. August is from share cropping stock and Hattie at times reminds him of this.
The brutality and disappointment life serves over and over is explored in depth in this novel. What is the nature of love? Is it separate from tenderness? What does a lifetime of oppression do to the dreams of a mother? What does it mean to raise show more children you can't truly protect from the horrors of the world? Why does motherhood consume women and fatherhood is more of a pass time for fathers?
The colorism in the novel was pervasive. All of the men were seeking high yellow girls with small waists and big butts. Most of the women who were pov characters were described as light skin. It made me uncomfortable. I think colorism is important to explore and discuss I just would've liked to see a darker skin women as a major character or hell even described as desirable.
Pain and dysfunction are passed down in families like a disease. This accurately shows this process. From the best of intentions come further dysfunctional patterns.
I liked the authors treatment of Christianity and preachers in the novel. Christianity is so important in the black community and has been since slavery. Yet I agree with the author that it serves us not at all as a religion, more as a place to rest your soul. Don't get caught up too deep though as it doesn't bring the peace and happiness it promises. Ever.
In the end Hattie is a hard women to either know or love. She is fierce, strong and the iron rod of her family. I see in Hattie much I see in myself. show less

This book is a family history of sorts. It begins with Hattie Shepherd leaving the Jim Crow South for a better life in Philadelphia. Hattie’s hope soon turns to despair after the loss of her firstborn children. Spanning the years 1925 to 1980, the book follows Hattie’s children and one grandchild, her twelve tribes. Each chapter concerns one or two of them as they strive to find a place for themselves in the world.

Though she is not the central character in all the chapters, Hattie’s influence is clearly evident throughout. It is her mothering, or lack thereof, that shapes each child. Saddled with a feckless husband, she must raise her children in crushing poverty. Devastated by her loss and faced with the relentless demands of show more caring for a growing number of children, she focuses only on providing their most basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing and preparing them for a world that she believes will not love them and will not be kind: “Hattie knew her children did not think her a kind woman – perhaps she wasn’t but there hadn’t been time for sentiment when they were young. She had failed them in vital ways, but what good would it have done to spend the days hugging and kissing if there hadn’t been anything to put in their bellies? They didn’t understand that all the love she had was taken up with feeding them and clothing them and preparing them to meet the world. The world would not love them; the world would not be kind” (236). Unfortunately, Hattie’s own spirit of hopelessness infects each child with the poverty of hopelessness as evidenced in the paths their lives take: one child is a closeted gay; another child becomes a fraudulent preacher; one son is sexually abused; another son becomes a gambler and a drunk; one daughter suffers from a mental disease; another daughter attempts suicide.

Despite Hattie’s failings as a mother, a discerning reader will find it impossible to hate her. As one of her daughters says, “Mother was never tender,” but “Mother has always done what’s necessary” (220). Whenever one of her children is in distress, she does come to their aid, even if that child has done something which hurt her more than she can find words to express (215) and which makes even the child believe she is undeserving of her mother’s forgiveness (190). Hattie too was a victim of circumstances: “Fate had plucked Hattie out of Georgia to birth eleven children and establish them in the North, but she was only a child herself, utterly inadequate to the task she’d been given” (236). Furthermore, she is not able to cultivate her inner life, as one of her daughter’s realizes: “Mother was a beautiful young woman; the house was too plain, too small to contain her. . . . I understood she had an inner life that didn’t have anything to do with me or my brothers and sisters” (221). When Hattie tries to escape and find some personal happiness, she is unsuccessful. One of her daughters observes, “She’d never seen any joy in her at all. Hattie had been stern and angry all of Bell’s life, and it occurred to her that her mother must have been unhappy most of the time” (201). Her husband perhaps best summaries Hattie’s life when he thinks, “There were too many disappointments to name and too much heartbreak” (106).

Hattie admits her shortcomings; she tells one of her daughters, “’I never did know what to do about my children’s spirits. I didn’t know how to help anybody in that way’”(215). Hattie’s sister gives the following description of Hattie: “Hattie had never been easy to love. She was too quiet, it was impossible to know what she was thinking. And she was angry all of the time and so disdainful when her high expectations weren’t met” (127). A daughter uses almost the same words: “How stoic and constant Mother was, how seething and unfathomable . . . secretive and quick-tempered” (201). In the end, Hattie admits, “She had been angry with her children, and with August, who’d brought her nothing but disappointment” (236) but suggests she is leaving that anger behind: “’But I’ve been mad all my life, and I finally figured out that I couldn’t keep carrying that with me. It’s too heavy and I’m tired’” (215). Anger “hadn’t served her when she was young and wouldn’t serve her now” (243). She may also have time to show tenderness: “she patted her granddaughter’s back roughly, unaccustomed as she was to tenderness” (243). It may have taken Hattie 55 years to change, but then human beings do not change easily, especially if they are as proud as Hattie.

I do not choose books because they are recommended by Oprah; in fact, I often choose not to read them if they appear on her lists. This time, however, I’m glad I overcame my initial reluctance. This is an excellent novel, especially considering it is a debut work. The story it tells of people “wounded and chastened” (111) can be bleak, but the book is beautifully written with a definite lyrical quality. The book may take the reader to dark places, but as Hattie says, “’Everybody’s been there’” (215), and we can learn from those visits. show less

wow I made myself finish this but it was so dark and bleak. well written yes, but just downright depressing. agree with other reviewers on here that I need time to recover from so from that standpoint, this is really powerful writing. but like watching Saving Private Ryan I just want to curl up in the fetal position and watch cartoons.

We meet Hattie Shepherd when she isn't more than a girl herself. Seventeen years old, she and her husband August have moved to Philadelphia with their twins Philadelphia and Jubilee. (Why are the babies named Philadelphia and Jubilee, you may wonder? Mathis tells us: "Hattie wanted to give her babies names that weren't already chiseled on a headstone in the family plots in Georgia, so she gave them names of promise and of home, reaching forward names, not looking back ones.) Away from her family, Hattie struggles to care for the babies when they get sick, and the picture that Mathis draws of Hattie sitting on the floor in a steaming bathroom, trying to help her babies breathe, is so vivid that it took me back to the times when I did the show more same with my babies. Mathis drops us right into Hattie's life, and this first chapter, like the other chapters that focus on her other children, is filled with emotion and heartbreak, hope and tragedy, real life. The chapters are connected only because each tells an episode from the life of one of Hattie's children, and it is through their lives that we come to know Hattie.

Hattie's life is not an easy one, but it is also not so different from many other lives of struggle. What sets this book apart is that Mathis is a sharp observer of Hattie's troubles and of the way that Hattie deals with them. In comparing her to the other women in her neighborhood, Mathis observes, "And of course the other women of Wayne Street had been wounded and chastened by the North, just as Hattie had been, but she was so insistent on the singularity of her disappointment she could not see she wasn't alone in her circumstance." Hattie's children often express frustration with Hattie, struggling to remember when she has shown them love. But as Hattie observes, "They didn't understand that all the love she had was taken up with feeding them and clothing them and preparing them to meet the world. The world would not love them; the world would not be kind."

I had put off reading this book after it got so much publicity from being selected for Oprah's Book Club. But Mathis is going to be at this year's Iowa City Book Festival, so that nudged me to read this now. And I am so glad that I did. Hattie is a strong and tough protagonist (reminiscent of Olive Kitteridge?), but it is Mathis's way of capturing Hattie's world that truly made this book stand out for me. One of my favorites of the year. show less