Kindred – Octavia Butler
Kindred is about Dana, an African American woman who finds herself time-traveling involuntarily to Maryland in the early nineteenth century. On her 26th birthday, Dana and her husband are moving into their apartment when she starts to feel dizzy. She falls to her knees, nauseous. Then the world falls away.
She finds herself at the edge of a green wood by a vast river. A child is screaming. Wading into the water, she pulls him to safety, only to find herself face to face with a very old-looking rifle, in the hands of the boy’s father. She’s terrified. The next thing she knows she’s back in her apartment, soaking wet. It’s the most terrifying experience of her life … until it happens again.
The longer Dana spends in 19th-century Maryland – a very dangerous place for a black woman – the more aware she is that her life might be over before it’s even begun.
Kindred is one of those books that feels like it should be required reading for everyone. It’s a page-turning, disturbing, provocative, complex, incredibly smart novel. Technically it’s science fiction since it involves time travel, but it doesn’t follow a lot of other conventions.
