Kindred

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Synopsis

Dana Franklin is a young, modern-day, Black woman who is just settling into a new home with her husband when she is suddenly and inexplicably transported to a plantation in the Antebellum South. There she finds young Rufus Weylin drowning and eventually realizes that she was summoned there by the boy to save his life. Her initial stay in the past is brief, but she keeps being drawn back in time, over and over again, any time Rufus is in danger, and over time, she watches him grow into a young man. But each time Dana travels to the past, her stay becomes more arduous and dangerous as she experiences the horrors of slavery, racism, and sexism first-hand. At first, Dana believes that she is meant to somehow influence Rufus toward leading a better life, but as he grows older, her feelings toward him become more complicated, as she finds herself in a time paradox that requires her to make difficult decisions in order to ensure the continuation of her own existence.

Review

Kindred is a stand-alone time travel novel from the fertile mind of Octavia E. Butler who, it's my understanding, was the first African American woman to be published in the sci-fi genre. It tells the story of Dana, a modern Black woman from 1976 who was recently married and is just settling into a new home with her husband, when she suddenly and inexplicably is drawn back in time to a plantation in the Antebellum South. Upon arriving, she immediately sees a young boy drowning and snaps into action to save his life. The boy, Rufus, is the son of the plantation's owner, Tom Weylin, who is none too friendly toward her in spite of her saving his child. Dana's initial sojourn there is a brief one, and she returns home to find that virtually no time has passed in her own time. However, she keeps being transported back every time Rufus's life is in danger, each time staying longer and longer, and only returning home when her own life is in danger. As she continues to travel, she watches Rufus grow up, and while in the past, she experiences the horrors of racism and slavery first-hand. Dana quickly realizes that she has a connection to Rufus, so during her time in the past, she feels it is her duty to try to influence him for good, but most of her pleas fall on deaf ears. This results in her having complicated feelings toward him, but to ensure her own existence and that of her entire family, she must continue saving him and doing her best to keep him alive. But ultimately she may not be able to save Rufus from his own self-destructive tendencies.

Dana is the first-person narrator of this story and she has a compelling voice. She's a woman, who even in her own time of 1976, faces prejudices, but it's still far better than the climate was for Black people in the Antebellum South. Every time she's transported back there, she fears she may not survive the trip. Despite not being a slave, as a Black person, she's still subject to the whims of Rufus and his father. Sometimes Rufus treats her like a sort of friend, but other times, he treats her like a slave, ordering her around, and still others, he turns on her, harming her or endangering her life. Knowing that he's inextricably connected to her, Dana has very complex feelings toward him. She believes that she must do whatever she can to keep him alive for her own sake and that of her family, but he doesn't make it easy for her. She also can sometimes see the humanity in him and wants to save him from himself, but other times, he makes her angry enough to want him dead. Ultimately, though, Dana is a loving and forgiving person, never truly turning her back on Rufus, even though she has every reason to do so. She's an incredibly multifaceted character who deeply empathizes with the slaves on the Weylin plantation and befriends several of them, because she's often treated little better than they are and can relate. However, I think that perhaps as a modern woman who knows Rufus can do better, she genuinely wants to save him, too, not just in a physical sense, but also in a moral sense. She feels she owes it not only to him, but even more so to the slaves whose lives she wants to better. In some small ways, it could be argued that she was successful, but in bigger ways, not so much. What it boils down to, though, for me is that Dana was simply a character who I loved and with whom I appreciated going on this thought-provoking journey.

The other main character in this story is Rufus who begins drawing Dana back to him when he's just a child. Unfortunately her time with him when he's young is very short, so she isn't able to influence him when he's still at an impressionable age as much as she would have liked. The bulk of her interactions with him are as a young man. As Dana describes him, he's a man of his time, steeped in racial bigotry and having no particular scruples surrounding the slaves his father, and later he, owns. He's constantly getting himself into trouble of one sort or another, which is why Dana has to keep saving his sorry hide, even though neither he nor his father show appropriate gratitude for her actions. At first, I thought that Rufus was just accident-prone, but as the story progressed, I couldn't help feeling that he actually had a self-destructive bent, one could even say a death wish. He has a complicated relationship with his parents. His father can be pretty harsh toward him, while his mother has a tendency to coddle him even when he's old enough to stand on his own. I think as a result of his upbringing, Rufus is often entitled, self-absorbed, and perhaps even a bit narcissistic. He's also highly dysfunctional and destructive in his relationships as well. I believe some part of him actually loves Alice, his childhood best friend who is a slave, but the way he treats her once they're both grown is reprehensible. Dana once muses that in this time, it's perfectly acceptable for a White man to rape a Black woman, but it's not acceptable for him to love her. So his relationship to both Alice and Dana, who because of their resemblance, he thinks of as one person, is complex. While we aren't directly made privy to his thoughts, his actions often speak louder than words. Every once in a while, we see glimmers of his humanity, something that arguably Dana brings out of him, but he just can't seem to reach beyond the system into which he was born or imagine a world beyond his own upbringing in spite of Dana telling him that Black/White relations are different in her time, which ultimately leads to his downfall.

Kindred was a book that grabbed me from the opening pages and didn't let go until I turned the last one. I often hated to put it down, because it's so gripping. The author's writing style simply flows into the reader's mind, painting vivid pictures of life on an Antebellum plantation. Her characters are complex, nuanced, and fully realized. Even the supporting characters leap off the page to grab the reader and draw them into their story. I love that it's told from the perspective of a modern Black woman who knows what's to come in the future, yet still experiences many of the same things that the slaves of that time experienced because of the color of her skin. I feel like it uniquely positions her to see things in a way that no one else can. The time travel aspect is a relatively simple one, but at the same time, it, too, is complex in it's paradoxes and gives a singular flavor to the story. The plot is, at first glance, deceptively straightforward, yet it twists into a tangled web that explores racism, slavery, human rights, and the very nature of humanity itself all through the eyes of one woman's extraordinary experience. Kindred is one of those stories that, if you let it, wraps itself around your heart and permeates your mind in a haunting way that won't let go. Even after finishing it, I still feel like it has more to tell me--to teach me. It's a book that I know I'll want to revisit again. I can't recommend it highly enough and can say without reservation that this is a book that's ripe for book clubs and discussion groups. In fact, I almost wish I had read it with one to get even more diverse perspectives on it. But even still, it's a story that I won't soon forget and that has definitely put Octavia Butler on my radar. I can't wait to read more of this phenomenally talented author's work.

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