The Invention of Wings: A Review

Sue Monk Kidd is the author of this book described by USA Today as a “searing and soaring story of two women bound together as mistress and slave.”

This is a historical fiction and several of the characters are real characters in history. The author describes her writing of this story as follows: “My aim was not to write a thinly fictionalized account of Sarah Grimke’s history, but a thickly imagined story inspired by her life.”

Sarah and Angelina (Angelina was Sarah’s sister) were born into the power and wealth of Charleston’s aristocracy, a social class that derived from English concepts of landed gentry. They were ladies of piety and gentility, who moved in the elite circles of society, and yet few nineteenth-century women ever “misbehaved” so thoroughly. They went through a long, painful metamorphosis, breaking from their family, their religion, their homeland, and their traditions becoming exiles and eventually pariahs in Charleston. Fifteen years before Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which was  wholly influenced by American Slavery As It Is, a pamphlet written by Sarah, Angelina, and Angelina’s husband, Theodore Weld, and published in 1839, the Grimke sisters were out crusading not only for the immediate emancipation of slaves, but for racial equality, an idea that was radical even among abolitionists. And ten years before the Seneca Falls Convention, initiated by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Grimkes were fighting a bruising battle for women’s rights, taking the first blows of backlash.

As a girl, Sarah was given a young slave named Hetty to be her waiting maid. The author has fictionalized much of the story of Sarah and Hetty’s friendship and relationship. It is historical fact that Sarah taught Hetty how to read which was illegal in fact Sarah’s father had helped write the South Carolina  law that made it illegal to teach a slave to read.

In the fictionalized story Sarah tried to give Hetty her freedom but found that even though she could be forced to own a slave she did not have the freedom to free her. Hetty’s mother also a slave asked Sarah to promise to help Hetty get free.

This story helps one to see the conflicting interests between the slave owners and the slaves. Some of the slave owners such as Sarah and her sister Angelina were very against slavery and the true history of their lives reveal their work as abolitionists.

In this story, Sarah finally is able to help Hetty and Hetty’s sister escape.

If you are not able to find this powerful book at your bookstore check with Amazon.com or other online venues to order a copy.