Thanks Beth for a great evening together. Our discussion was so interesting when we got into “what is faith” vs “belief”. Good questions and answers. Although not his best book it was definitely a good one to read and share thoughts about.
Our next meeting will be at LuAnn’s home on Tuesday November 4th at 7pm. Her book pick is:
Goodreads review says: Hetty "Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.
Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty-five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.
As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.
Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better.
This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.
A Goodreads reader says:
We think that we know something about the atrocities of slavery because we learned about it in American history class, or we saw glimpses of it in a movie or a book. But it isn't until we confront a depiction of it that seems so real and horrible, that we realize how very little we really know of the injustice of slavery. Sue Monk Kidd has provided that depiction in this amazing novel.
In blending fact and fiction, she tells the story of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, two sisters from Charleston, S.C. who devote their lives to the abolition of slavery and to the women's rights movement in the 1800's. It is also the courageous story of Handful (Hetty),her mother Charlotte, and sister Sky, slaves to the Grimke family. While, Kidd in her notes gives details of her research and clarifies what was fact and what was fiction in the novel, I loved that one of my favorite parts of the book was true - Sarah teaches Handful to read.
The journey of these courageous children who become courageous women against the odds is a story that will stay with me.
See you at book club. I’m looking forward to reading this one.
