Kindred

 

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Fantasy/Time Travel

1979 Beacon Press

Finished on January 2, 2021

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given...

Finally! I first heard about this book from a couple of friends many years ago and always intend to read it, but for some reason, I never got my hands on a copy. A few months ago, I decided to request it from the library and I've finally read it. I wanted to love it, and I did think it was quite good, but near the halfway point, I was getting a little ansty to be finished. The early chapters were pretty intense, but as the story progressed, the pace began to drag. I grew impatient with the strange relationship between Dana and Rufus and would have liked to read more about Dana's time back in her present day world. Unlike other time travel books I've enjoyed (The Time Traveler's Wife, for instance), Kindred is essentially a social commentary with time travel as a literary device.

Published in 1979, it is somewhat dated:

He got up and went to the living room. Moments later, he came back and dumped an armload of books on the bed. "I brought everything we had on black history," he said. "Start hunting."

There were ten books. We checked indexes and even leafed through some of the books page by page to be sure. Nothing. I hadn't really thought there would be anything in these books. I hadn't read them all, but I'd at least glanced through them before.

"We'll have to go to the library then," said Kevin. "We'll go today as soon as it's open." 

Ummm, why not just do search on Google? Oh, yeah. No Internet in 1979.

All in all, Kindred a worthwhile read and one that I'd recommend.