The Invention of Wings: With Notes

Sue Monk Kidd

Jan 2014 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: this special eBook edition of The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the text, and a reading group guide.

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.

Please note there is another digital edition available without Oprah’s notes.

Go to Oprah.com/bookclub for more OBC 2.0 content 
 

Ratings and reviews

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd is a remarkable historical novel. The book starts out in February of 1805 in Charleston, South Carolina. Hetty Handful Grimke is ten years old and a slave in the Grimke household. Her mother is Charlotte and the seamstress of the house. Sarah Moore Grimke is turning eleven years old and is leaving the nursery. She is finally getting her own room and her mother is giving her a “waiting maid” as a present. Handful (as Sarah calls her) is Sarah’s new maid. Sarah is against slavery and does not want to own a slave. She tries to refuse, but her mother will not back down. Sarah is very intelligent. She loves to read and learn (not what she is taught at the girl’s school, but what her older brother teaches her). Her father has reluctantly given her access to his library (she loves to read books on mythology, law, history). Sarah is a very unusual girl for her time. Sarah’s draft up manumission paper for Hetty, but her parents destroy them. Sarah rebels by teaching Hetty to read. They get up to 100 words before they are discovered. Sarah no longer has access to the library and Hetty gets the whip. Hetty’s mother, Charlotte, is always pushing the boundaries. She steals small items (and usually no one notices), she found a way to sell her sewing work (since the missus would not give permission) and earn money, and is dallying with a free black man in town (when she is supposed to be buying material). Is she setting the right example for Hetty? Sarah at one point gives her ownership of Hetty back to her parents. Hetty then becomes the assistant seamstress in the house and turns out to be even better than her mother. Sarah spends a lot of her time helping to raising Angelina or Nina. Sarah had requested to be the child’s godmother (which she got despite her mother’s misgivings). Sarah raises Nina in her image (strong, determined, rebellious, and very intelligent). When Sarah’s father becomes very ill, Sarah takes him up north to see a specialist (her mother wanted her out of the house). Sarah gets to experience a different way of life and likes it. After her father dies, Sarah delays returning home as long as she can. When Sarah returns home, she is not happy. She finds her way to a Quaker settlement in the north (where she does not quite fit in). Sarah is determined to find a way for her voice to be heard. The book tells of how Sarah as well as Nina fight for abolishment of slavery as well as rights for women. We get to see how Hetty rebels in her own way as she grows up. The Invention of Wings is a complex novel, but very enjoyable. I was not sure I would like this book and I ended up riveted. I give The Invention of Wings 4.5 out of 5 stars. Please be aware that there are some scenes that go into detail on slave punishments (especially the one involving a rope and a foot). The Invention of Wings is a well-written and deeply moving novel. I will definitely be reading more books by Sue Monk Kidd. I received a complimentary copy of The Invention of Wings from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The review and opinions expressed are my own.

I loved the history behind this book. But once Kidd got to the end, it felt like she rushed things. All the thinking and soul searching on Sarah's part became redundant.

Beautifully written. Interesting topics and insights. I wanted to keep reading until the end and then wanted more. Relationship between Sarah and Hetty was too far fetched for me. Fictional vs factual breakdown by the author was enlightening. Oprah's notes were pedantic and uninspiring.

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.