How is it that I am FROM South Carolina and was a History major, and yet I did not know who the Grimke sisters were but I knew Lucretia Mott?
Ugh.
On the positive side, this is one of the many things I LOVE about reading - you learn, even when you are not aware of it until the end of the book.
Charleston, 1803. Eleven year old Sarah Grimke is given ownership of a slave girl, Handful, for her birthday gift. She refuses, writes an emancipation letter, and tries to give the girl her freedom. So begins such shocking behavior from a daughter of a well known Southern judge from a well known slaveowning family that her life is ever changed and estranged. Sarah knows in her soul that slavery is wrong. But Sarah is a victim of a different kind of entrapment - her gender. It is unTHINKable that a woman would have an opinion, much less express it - out loud!!!! Eeeee Gads!!!!!
The relationship between Handful and Sarah provides the basis for this reenactment, and while the author does a great job of including real historical figures and events, Handful is fictional - mostly. Kidd does not shy away from the atrocities of slavery and human ownership and the mindset of many a slaveowner, that it is God's will that they own and "care for" and keep in line the Negro population. When Sarah leaves her church and begins to truly campaign for emancipation, and this bleeds into women's rights, her home city evicts her, her family despairs for her soul and her future. Sarah and her little sister Nina bond over their convictions and shake up the world in doing so - as women. Sarah, like few women in her time, truly struggles with the desire for love, marriage and companionship and her belief that her voice, her words, her natural desire to DO SOMETHING. In several chapters I was frustrated because of Sarah's wallowing in self pity and inaction - she is frozen between two worlds and has a hard time moving between them. Easy for me to say now, when a woman "having it all" is what I was brought up with. Sarah was brought up to only believe that a husband and children and running the house were the ONLY aspirations for a woman. Could she be content with that?? She constantly queries her purpose.
Alternating between Sarah's POV and Handful's, the reader gets a good sense of what both women struggle with - their relationships with their mothers; the oppression of body, soul, mind and freedom; their lack of control over their lives; and how they feel about each other - are they friends? Master and Slave? How much they learn from each other!!!!
Sue Monk Kidd is a fantastic writer - this book, even with its horrific subject matter - was a beautiful read. Maybe part of that beauty was because she did not shy away from telling true stories of how slaves lived (if you can call it that). She relates torturous punishments for the smallest infractions and tells how one kind comment was so very huge to Handful. The history of quilting, of music, of tradition and holding on to self- awareness and truth to self is the other central piece of this novel. It will make you think, it will make you cringe, it will make you cheer, and it will make you so thankful that we live in the current time. Both of these communities have come a long way since 1803, but nothing is equitable yet for either. But for the absolutely society-busting bravery and convictions of women like Sarah, Nina and Handful, who knows where we'd be now?
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