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From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees and the forthcoming novel The Book of Longings, a novel about two unforgettable American women.

Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world.

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.

Review

Praise for The Invention of Wings

“A remarkable novel that heightened my sense of what it meant to be a woman – slave or free . . a conversation changer.” – Oprah Winfrey, O, The Oprah Magazine

“Exhilarating. . .powerful. . .By humanizing these formidable women, The Invention of Wings furthers our essential understanding of what has happened among us as Americans – and why it still matters.” – The Washington Post

“A textured masterpiece, quietly yet powerfully poking our consciences and our consciousness . . . leaves us feeling uplifted and hopeful.” – NPR

“A searing and soaring story of two women bound together as mistress and slave.” – USA Today

“Kidd has managed to avoid both condescension and cliché, creating an unforgettable character in the slave Handful, the emotional core of her utterly engaging third novel.” – The Boston Globe

“If this isn’t an American classic-to-be, I don’t know what is. . .this book is as close to perfect as any I’ve ever read.” – The Dallas Morning News

“A powerful story of rebellion and heroism. . .The remarkable courage and hope found in The Invention of Wings is a reminder that we all have those wings – and tells us a lot more about how we got them.” – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Kidd has done a marvelous job of capturing two special and vibrant voices. . . I can’t recall reading a book about slavery that presented in such vivid and heartbreaking detail just what the daily life and labor felt like.” – The Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A total revelation. . .the book is balanced by two extraordinary women: real-life abolitionist and feminist Sarah Grimké and the imagined handmaiden Handful, who nearly leaps off every page.” – Patrick Bass, Essence

About the Author

Sue Monk Kidd is the award-winning and bestselling author of the novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair. She is also the author of several acclaimed memoirs, including the New York Times bestseller Traveling with Pomegranates, written with her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor. She lives in Florida.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Part One November
1803–February 1805

Sarah Grimké

My eleventh birthday began with Mother promoting me from the nursery. For a year I’d longed to escape the porcelain dolls, tops, and tiny tea sets strewn across the floor, the small beds lined up in a row, the whole glut and bedlam of the place, but now that the day had come, I balked at the threshold of my new room. It was paneled with darkness and emanated the smell of my brother—all things smoky and leather. The oak canopy and red velvet valance of the bedstead was so towering it seemed closer to the ceiling than the floor. I couldn’t move for dread of living alone in such an enormous, overweening space.
Drawing a breath, I flung myself across the door sill. That was the artless way I navigated the hurdles of girlhood. Everyone thought I was a plucky girl, but in truth, I wasn’t as fearless as everyone assumed. I had the temperament of a tortoise. Whatever dread, fright, or bump appeared in my path, I wanted nothing more than to drop in my tracks and hide. If you must err, do so on the side of audacity. That was the little slogan I’d devised for myself. For some time now, it had helped me to hurl myself over door sills.
That morning was full of cold, bright wind pouring off the Atlantic and clouds blowing like windsocks. For a moment, I stood just inside the room listening to the saber-fronds on the palmettos clatter around the house. The eaves of the piazza hissed. The porch swing groaned on its chains. Downstairs in the warming kitchen, Mother had the slaves pulling out Chinese tureens and Wedgwood cups, preparing for my birthday party. Her maid Cindie had spent hours wetting and fastening Mother’s wig with paper and curlers and the sour smell of it baking had nosed all the way up the stairs. I watched as Binah, the nursery mauma, tucked my clothes into the heavy old wardrobe, recalling how she used a fire poke to rock Charles’ cradle, her cowrie shell bracelets rattling along her arms while she terrified us with tales of the Booga Hag—an old woman who rode about on a broom and sucked the breath from bad children. I would miss Binah. And sweet Anna, who slept with her thumb in her mouth. Ben and Henry, who jumped like banshees until their mattresses erupted with geysers of goose feathers, and little Eliza, who had a habit of slipping into my bed to hide from the Booga’s nightly reign of terror.
Of course, I should’ve graduated from the nursery long ago, but I’d been forced to wait for John to go away to college. Our three-storied house was one of the grandest in Charleston, but it lacked enough bedrooms, considering how . . . well, fruitful Mother was. There were ten of us: John, Thomas, Mary, Frederick, and myself, followed by the nursery dwellers—Anna, Eliza, Ben, Henry, and baby Charles. I was the middle one, the one Mother called different and Father called remarkable, the one with the carroty hair and the freckles, whole constellations of them. My brothers had once traced Orion, the Dipper, and Ursa Major on my cheeks and forehead with charcoal, connecting the bright red specks, and I hadn’t minded—I’d been their whole sky for hours.
Everyone said I was Father’s favorite. I don’t know whether he preferred me or pitied me, but he was certainly my favorite. He was a judge on South Carolina’s highest court and at the top of the planter class, the group Charleston claimed as its elite. He’d fought with General Washington and been taken prisoner by the British. He was too modest to speak of these things— for that, he had Mother.
Her name was Mary, and there ends any resemblance to the mother of our Lord. She was descended from the first families of Charleston, that little company of Lords that King Charles had sent over to establish the city. She worked this into conversations so tirelessly we no longer made the time or effort to roll our eyes. Besides governing the house, a host of children, and fourteen slaves, she kept up a round of social and religious duties that would’ve worn out the queens and saints of Europe.
When I was being forgiving, I said that my mother was simply exhausted. I suspected, though, she was simply mean. When Binah finished arranging my hair combs and ribbons on the lavish Hepplewhite atop my new dressing table, she turned to me, and I must have looked forsaken standing there because she clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and said, “Poor Miss Sarah.”
I did so despise the attachment of Poor to my name. Binah had been muttering Poor Miss Sarah like an incantation since I was four. "

It’s my earliest memory: arranging my brother’s marbles into words. It is summer, and I am beneath the oak that stands in the back corner of the work yard. Thomas, ten, whom I love above all the others, has taught me nine words: SARAH, GIRL, BOY, GO, STOP, JUMP, RUN, UP, DOWN. He has written them on a parchment and given me a pouch of forty-eight glass marbles with which to spell them out, enough to shape two words at a time. I arrange the marbles in the dirt, copying Thomas’ inked words. Sarah Go. Boy Run. Girl Jump. I work as fast as I can. Binah will come soon looking for me.
It’s Mother, however, who descends the back steps into the yard. Binah and the other house slaves are clumped behind her, moving with cautious, synchronized steps as if they’re a single creature, a centipede crossing an unprotected space. I sense the shadow that hovers over them in the air, some devouring dread, and I crawl back into the green-black gloom of the tree.
The slaves stare at Mother’s back, which is straight and without give. She turns and admonishes them. “You are lagging. Quickly now, let us be done with this.”
As she speaks, an older slave, Rosetta, is dragged from the cow house, dragged by a man, a yard slave. She fights, clawing at his face. Mother watches, impassive.
He ties Rosetta’s hands to the corner column of the kitchen house porch. She looks over her shoulder and begs. Missus, please. Missus. Missus. Please. She begs even as the man lashes her with his whip.
Her dress is cotton, a pale yellow color. I stare transfixed as the back of it sprouts blood, blooms of red that open like petals. I cannot reconcile the savagery of the blows with the mellifluous way she keens or the beauty of the roses coiling along the trellis of her spine. Someone counts the lashes—is it Mother? Six, seven.
The scourging continues, but Rosetta stops wailing and sinks against the porch rail. Nine, ten. My eyes look away. They follow a black ant traveling the far reaches beneath the tree—the mountainous roots and forested mosses, the endless perils—and in my head I say the words I fashioned earlier. Boy Run. Girl Jump. Sarah Go.
Thirteen. Fourteen . . . I bolt from the shadows, past the man who now coils his whip, job well done, past Rosetta hanging by her hands in a heap. As I bound up the back steps into the house, Mother calls to me, and Binah reaches to scoop me up, but I escape them, thrashing along the main passage, out the front door, where I break blindly for the wharves.
I don’t remember the rest with clarity, only that I find myself wandering across the gangplank of a sailing vessel, sobbing, stumbling over a turban of rope. A kind man with a beard and a dark cap asks what I want. I plead with him, Sarah Go.
Binah chases me, though I’m unaware of her until she pulls me into her arms and coos, “Poor Miss Sarah, poor Miss Sarah.” Like a decree, a proclamation, a prophecy.
When I arrive home, I am a muss of snot, tears, yard dirt, and harbor filth. Mother holds me against her, rears back and gives me an incensed shake, then clasps me again. “You must promise never to run away again. Promise me.”
I want to. I try to. The words are on my tongue—the rounded lumps of them, shining like the marbles beneath the tree.
“Sarah!” she demands.
Nothing comes. Not a sound.
I remained mute for a week. My words seemed sucked into the cleft between my collar bones. I rescued them by degrees, by praying, bullying and wooing. I came to speak again, but with an odd and mercurial form of stammer. I’d never been a fluid speaker, even my first spoken words had possessed a certain belligerent quality, but now there were ugly, halting gaps between my sentences, endless seconds when the words cowered against my lips and people averted their eyes. Eventually, these horrid pauses began to come and go according to their own mysterious whims. They might plague me for weeks and then remain away months, only to return again as abruptly as they left. "
The day I moved from the nursery to commence a life of maturity in John’s staid old room, I wasn’t thinking of the cruelty that had taken place in the work yard when I was four or of the thin filaments that had kept me tethered to my voice ever since. Those concerns were the farthest thing from my mind. My speech impediment had been absent for some time now—four months and six days. I’d almost imagined myself cured.
So when Mother swept into the room all of a sudden—me, in a paroxysm of adjustment to my surroundings, and Binah, tucking my possessions here and there—and asked if my new quarters were to my liking, I was stunned by my inability to answer her. The door slammed in my throat, and the silence hung there. Mother looked at me and sighed.
When she left, I willed my eyes to remain dry and turned away from Binah. I couldn’t bear to hear one more Poor Miss Sarah.

Review:

4.9 out of 5

97.14% of customers are satisfied

5.0 out of 5 stars A FASCINATING STUDY OF PRE-CIVIL WAR SLAVERY AND ITS HUMAN IMPACT

S.T.W. · March 9, 2015

THE INVENTION OF WINGS REVIEWSue Monk Kidd is a remarkable writer with insight, a talent for storytelling, and the ability to create characters that resonate with the reader. “The Invention of Wings” is a vivid novel that engages the reader in a historical period that has been dealt with many times but seldom with such jarring intensity and compassion.Sarah Grimke, the daughter of a wealthy landowner and holder of many slaves in Charleston, is given a 10-year old black girl for her eleventh birthday to act as her handmaid. Kidd’s novel, based on actual people and events, traces their lives in parallel stories over the next thirty-five years as Sarah struggles with her aversion to slavery and Handful, as the slave is known, battles the cruelty of the institution with its demands, punishments, and family disruptions. Their relationship is perplexing with its periods of defiance, love, misunderstanding, and futile efforts at merging two cultures.Kidd presents each experience using chapters that alternate between Sarah and Handful as the years progress. Sarah, along with her sister, Angelina, grows to be a force in abolition and women’s rights while Handful emulates her mother’s pugnacious behavior as she uses guile in her abolition efforts, stealing if necessary, to confuse and muddle tradition. Through the years, although separated by distance, their mutual dedication to disrupting the practice of slavery continues, Sarah to great notoriety and Handful to personal pain, disfigurement, and adversity.It is a moving story of two women and their common fight against oppression, although different approaches are used in their individual battles. The author does a splendid job of outlining each adventure and the different challenges that each woman faces.The characterizations are beautifully drawn. The dialogue sparkles. The period descriptions are historically correct and appropriate for the times. Kidd is careful to explain in her Author’s Note that the Grimke sisters were authentic and the first female abolition advocates as well as among the earliest feminist activists. Their struggles and motivations, as well as Sarah’s inner voice and actual life, are the author’s interpretations based on her research. Handful is a fictional character Kidd devised to add a slave’s voice and life to the story so both worlds could be presented. Handful is a wonderfully created character with spunk, determination, and a sassy spirit that longs for freedom.This is not a Civil War book. In fact the events begin some sixty years earlier. It is a time when the institution of slavery was deeply imbedded in the South and radical attempts at abolition were deeply resented but not taken very seriously. It is very illuminating to this reader who is more familiar with the time surrounding the war. Read it.Schuyler T WallaceAuthor of TIN LIZARD TALES

4.0 out of 5 stars ... Absolutely Superp and Delightful I think it is a beautiful, well-written and touching book

L.P. · August 12, 2014

The invention of wings - Absolutely Superp and DelightfulI think it is a beautiful, well-written and touching book. It brings us close to the atrocities of slavery in a time when both women and slaves had no rights and no voice at all. Although the atrocities are there since they are part of the characters’ lives, they are not the center of the plot. In a family where slave cruelty was commonplace, an abolitionist child, Sarah, flourishes and will go through an ordeal not only to respect her beliefs but also to fight for them. The same happens to her younger sister Nina who, as Sarah's goddaughter, not only takes after her in her position before the world and its injustices, but is bolder and moves from words to actions more promptly. Sarah's life is entwined with the life of the slave she receives as a gift on her 11th birthday, Hetty Handful, to whose freedom she feels committed. The author has a wonderful way with the words and delights us with precious paragraphs that unveil the insights of these three girls on their way towards womanhood. It's amazing how she outlines the accomplishments of the two sisters who had to break with their origin within an aristocratic family, and everything brought along with it, in their pursue to be true to themselves, becoming the two first female abolition agents in America. “Sarah the first woman in America to write a comprehensive feminist manifesto and Nina the first woman in the United States to speak before a legislative body” as the author stated. Two historical women wonderfully depicted by Mrs. Monk Kidd. The story of three women who found their ways to voice themselves, and I felt privileged to have been led by Mrs. Kidd into following their steps.The way the relationship between Sarah and the slave Hetty Handful develops did not meet my initial expectations but now I am sure it could not have been different in the 1800’s. In fact, this sensation did not affect neither my appreciation of the book nor the impact it had on me. On the contrary, it rather challenged me into trying to understand both the time when they lived in and the magnitude of their attitudes. The bond and intimacy possible back then between a slave and a white person were determined by rules and laws instead of their feelings. Although the two girls struggled to go beyond these boundaries I had the sensation that it could have gone deeper and that a lot more was kept inside in many situations. I loved the way the author made me see how deeply the relationship impacted on one another in spite of the distance imposed by the rules, as well as understand the extent and importance of actions that seemed so little at first in many passages of the plot.Following the path of these two brave women in their fight against slavery and for women's rights, and the slave's endurance to preserve her inner freedom, was a rich and enlightening experience provided by an inspiring, worth-reading book that combines rich fiction and a story based on true characters that are historical figures.

Invention of Wings

R.A.M. · March 20, 2021

One of the most powerful books that I've read lately. It drew me into a world of horrors where owning slaves and cruelty were synonymous. It brings to light the under current of southern mentality that has not totally disappeared, ....just gone under the skin and appears subtly when no one is looking!Horrifying but riveting to the very end.

Ein brandaktuelles Buch, das von den 1930er Jahren erzählt

l. · July 28, 2017

Sue Monk Kidd schreibt in der ihr eigenen, einfühlsamen Art von der historisch wahren Persönlichkeit Sarah Grimké und dem Finden Ihrer Berufung. Als Tochter eines Anwalts wird sie hineingeboren in eine große, reiche Familie im südlichen Charleston. Hochintelligent findet sie sich nicht in der vorgesehenen Rolle einer künftigen braven Ehefrau, die stickt und unterhält. Ihr innerer Kampf, der Versuch sich damit abzufinden und die gleichzeitige Unmöglichkeit lassen einen beim Lesen fast verzweifeln. Sie kann sich schon als kleines Mädchen nicht damit abfinden, dass es zweierlei Klassen von Menschen geben soll - die Weißen und die Schwarzen. Erst viele Jahre später findet Sarah Grimké ihre Stimme. Gemeinsam und in enger Bande mit ihrer Schwester Angeline Grimké zählt sie zu den Pionieren der Sklavereigegner - und da die Grimké-Schwestern Frauen waren, waren sie zwangsläufig auch Pionierinnen der Frauenbewegung.Dennoch ist das Buch nicht vor allem eine Streitschrift für die Gleichstellung von Menschen (egal ob Mann oder Frau, schwarz oder weiß), sondern erzählt die Entwicklung von beeindruckenden Persönlichkeiten und wie sie nicht trotz, sondern wegen schwieriger Umstände schließlich zu denen wurden, die sie waren.

Brilliant

k. · July 5, 2022

Absolutely loved this book. A story (based largely on fact) of the Grimke sisters who were pioneers in the abolition of slavery. A well known quote often attributed to Ruth Bader Ginsburg ; “I ask no favour for my sex. All I ask is that they take their feet off our necks” was actually said by Sarah Grimke. This is a story of slavery, of sisterhood, friendship and the immense cruelty that was the life of so many slaves. Compelling, interesting and riveting. We all have reason to be thankful to these two women and all the others who stood by what was right despite the hardship that this caused them.

Apasionante

C. · September 13, 2016

No conocía a las hermanas Grimké y me ha encantado leer sobre ellas, mujeres con unos principios tan fuertes y rompedores para su época. El libro está maravillosamente escrito, con una prosa fácil de seguir y a la vez llena de vocabulario literario que te transporta al siglo XIX. Las descripciones de detalles cotidianos de la vida de entonces son deliciosas. La autora logra transmitirte el caudal de sentimientos diversos de las protagonistas con maestría. Lo he disfrutado muchísimo y lo recomiendo, sobre todo porque son personas reales, gracias a las cuales las mujeres del mundo occidental disfrutamos de los derechos y libertades actuales.

Un capolavoro.

V. · October 30, 2015

Questo libro sembra seriamente basato su personaggi reali e, almeno in parte (l'embrione di progetto di sollevazione), su fatti realmente accaduti. Esso descrive con finezza psicologica le secolari barriere del pregiudizio di cui era prigioniera un'intera società, pur tra le più attive nello sviluppo del costituzionalismo, le inevitabili sfaccettature all'interno di essa, l'eroismo di coloro che per primi, anticipando i tempi, vi si opposero, le sofferenze di generazioni di vittime, in uno stillicidio di episodi oscuri, non registrati dalla storia. Ben scritto, utile per chi vuole esercitarsi in inglese/americano senza sottoporsi a noiosi percorsi didattici. Lo schema resta quello, per me vincente a dispetto delle resipiscenze manzoniane, del romanzo storico. Nel finale, c'è pure la suspense, unica concessione, forse, ai facili effetti, ma non guasta e fa davvero palpitare. A mio sommesso avviso, un capolavoro.

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The Invention of Wings

Name: The Invention of Wings
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