The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

This new novel by the acclaimed author of The Secret Life of Bees tells the unlikely stories of two very different women in 19^th century Charleston.  Spanning more than thirty years, Kidd reveals the lives of Sarah Grimké: middle child in a large, wealthy South Carolina family and Hetty Handful Grimké: a slave owned by the Grimké family.  We begin in 1803 around the time of Sarah’s eleventh birthday.  The young girl is presented with two very different gifts: a chance to graduate from the nursery into her very own bedroom and a slave for her own personal maid.  Immediately Sarah tries to refuse the second “gift” from her mother.  This only ends in Sarah embarrassing her mother in front of a bunch of guests and having to write out many apology letters.

Late that same evening, Sarah sneaks into her father’s study to copy out a manumission document in order to free Hetty Handful outright.  Her father is a very important lawyer.  Surely he will carry out her wishes? Sarah remarks “What could Father do but make Hetty’s freedom as legal and binding as her ownership?  I was following a code of law he’d fashioned himself!” But when Sarah finds the document torn in two and lying in front of her bedroom door the next morning, she knows that helping Handful obtain her freedom will be more difficult than she’d imagined. 

Kidd allows us to see the two girls grow in friendship though their backgrounds are very different.  But Kidd also allows the reader a glimpse into the horror and brutality of slavery.  As we get to know Handful, we see that her mother Charlotte has dreams of freedom.  Though the woman is an expert seamstress and clearly the most valuable slave in the Grimké home, she is not content.  After years of bowing, scraping, and saving money from odd jobs outside the household, Charlotte disappears.  Handful, while heartbroken that she has been left behind, hopes that her mother is living somewhere as a free woman. 

Sarah grows and changes as the years go by.  She begs to become the godmother of her youngest sister, Nina, and her influence on the child is very apparent.  While Sarah quietly changes her religious views and begins to study abolition, Nina is a girl of outspoken and firm conviction.  After both women are jilted by potential husbands, the two join forces and become the first female voices for abolition; travelling all over the northern states speaking to other women about their views. 

Kidd has found an interesting way to bring the very real Grimke sisters to life.  Readers who enjoy historical fiction will not be disappointed in Kidd’s third novel.  TheInvention of Wings is available everywhere on January 7th, 2014.

The Testament of Mary by Colm Toiben

The Testament of Mary is a new look at an age-old story.  According to legend, Mary the Mother of Jesus lived out the end of her life in Ephesus, Turkey, an important city in early Christianity.  It is in this city that she gives her testament, hoping to understand the events that eventually became the story told in the New Testament, events that she admits “unhinged” her.  This Mary is not the dutiful saintly woman of Christian teaching and her recounting of events does not correspond to that in the Bible.  She does not agree that her son is the Son of God.  She is angry about her son’s death and at both his followers and herself for not protecting him from his gruesome fate. At the end of her life she is in hiding, living among strangers, dependent on two men she does not like or trust, possibly John and Luke. Colm Toibin’s Mary is a tragic human woman, imperfect, doubtful and frightened. The Testament of Mary is a book for readers open to examining another point of view.

Check out The Testament of Mary @ the library!

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

What would you do if one day a portion of the population including your friends, family, and neighbors suddenly disappeared?  This is the premise of The Leftovers.  The aftermath of the Sudden Departure is told through the stories of many different characters.  The uncertainty of the event (was it the Rapture or another inexpiable happening?) has changed everyone’s lives.  Some people continue on while others leave the family they have left and join cults such as the Barefoot People and the Guilty Remnant.  In contrast to Tom Perrotta’s other works this book is very subtle and does not have the satire that has become his trademark.  However, it’s a thought provoking book with loose ends that will have the reader drawing their own conclusions.  Checkout The Leftovers @ the library!