Kindred

Kindred is one of Octavia E. Butler’s lesser-known works, I think, primarily because it isn’t properly science fiction.  Dana Franklin, an African-American woman from 1976, is abruptly called back in time to the early 1800s to rescue her long-ago slaveholding ancestor Rufus Weylin.  The mechanics of the time traveling are wholly taken for granted and not dwelt upon at all.  Rather, Dana’s abrupt shifts into Rufus’s time, which occur whenever his life is endangered, and her returns to her contemporary setting, which occur whenever her life is endangered, snag up her timeline and cause her to question morals that she had previously firmly held.

Aside from the humiliation and physical danger of being a black woman before the Civil War, Dana must accustom herself to the cultural and social dynamics of the household if she is to survive long enough to save both herself and her ancestral line.  The ethical dilemmas that she faces are trying in the extreme, and neither she, nor her husband, nor her ancestors remain unaffected.  It’s a well-researched and nuanced presentation of a heritage of race and racism, a “What-If” tale whose intellectual and emotional merits vie for dominance.

Should you read this book?  Yes.  Especially the same copy as I have, which includes an appended critical essay that discusses Kindred as a new type of slave-narrative and has many insightful quotes from the author and facts about her artistic purposes.  It’s a tidily executed and rapid read, almost like a novella but with the scope of a classic.