The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
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Blurb: Sarah Grimké is the middle daughter. The one her mother calls difficult and her father calls remarkable. On Sarah’s eleventh birthday, Hetty ‘Handful’ Grimké is taken from the slave quarters she shares with her mother, wrapped in lavender ribbons, and presented to Sarah as a gift. Sarah knows what she does next will unleash a world of trouble. She also knows that she cannot accept. And so, indeed, the trouble begins … (Tinder Press, January 2014)
Harry Ritchie, The Daily Mail
“Based on the real stories of the socially pioneering Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, this novel is, as Sue Monk Kidd says, not so much a thinly fictionalised version as a ‘thickly imagined’ one. And it’s wonderful – really well-written, moving and enraging by turns, and always compelling.”
Anita Sethi, The Guardian
“In a world beset by modern-day slavery, this is a resonant, illuminating novel. It is a story about searching for a voice to express inexpressible pain. Handful’s “slave tongue” dialect is filled with hurt, longing and defiance, while Sarah, who struggles with speech, “pulled words up from her throat like she was raising water from a well”. It’s when they find voices to articulate the pain of being silenced that they pave their path to freedom.”
Margaret Wrinkle, The Washington Post
“Kidd’s focus on the Grimke sisters’ evolution provides a welcome exploration of the enormous impact that slavery had on whites as well as blacks. Even as she reveals the power of cross-racial intimacy to radicalize both parties, she doesn’t shy away from examining the dangers of white innocence and white privilege.”
Nick Rennison, The Sunday Times
“ There is probably more redemption to be found in Kidd’s novel than there ever was in reality, but it is an undeniably powerful and ambitious work.”
Kate Saunders, The Times
“A splendid tribute to a pair of true heroines.”
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