The Invention of Wings
Sue Monk Kidd, 2014
Historical fiction Contemporary fictionLiterary fiction
Two women in nineteenth-century Charleston—one born to privilege, one born enslaved—grow up entwined and learn what it costs to claim a self.
Feels like tenderness, unease and hope. About society, identity and friendship.
A page from the book
How comfortably we can live beside the things we claim to hate.
I saw then what I hadn’t seen before, that I was very good at despising slavery in the abstract, in the removed and anonymous masses, but in the concrete, intimate flesh of the girl beside me, I’d lost the ability to be repulsed by it. I’d grown comfortable with the particulars of evil. There’s a frightful muteness that dwells at the center of all unspeakable things, and I had found my way into it. Sue Monk Kidd.The real Sarah Grimké was born in Charleston in 1792 to a judge and became a Quaker abolitionist; her family disapproved.
Books that feel like this
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Benjamin Alire Sáenz, 2012
Also identity and tenderness.
More by Sue Monk Kidd
The Secret Life of Bees
Sue Monk Kidd, 2001
A motherless girl in 1964 South Carolina runs from her father and finds a household of beekeeping sisters who teach her what family might mean.
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Questions readers ask
- What is The Invention of Wings like?
- Feels like tenderness, unease and hope. About society, identity and friendship.
- What should I read after The Invention of Wings?
- If you liked The Invention of Wings, try Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Benjamin Alire Sáenz), The Kitchen House (Kathleen Grissom) and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (Lisa See).
A taste of the feed
Hope survives the night; morning is where it meets the evidence.
ONE SUMMER NIGHT I FELL ASLEEP, HOPING THE WORLD would be different when I woke. In the morning, when I opened my eyes, the world was the same. I threw off the sheets and lay there as the heat poured in through my open window.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe · Benjamin Alire Sáenz
How a father explains race to a child using nothing but the chickens.
Could I be your girl, too?“ I asked quickly. The large, broad-shouldered man looked away before he answered. ”Well, now,“ he said, as though he had given it deep thought, ”I sure do think I would like that.“ ”But,“ I said, concerned that he hadn’t noticed, ”I don’t look like your other girls.“ ”You mean because you white?“ I nodded. ”Abinia,“ he said, pointing toward the chickens, ”you look at those birds. Some of them be brown, some of them be white and black. Do you think when they little chicks, those mamas and papas care about that?
The Kitchen House · Kathleen Grissom
A marriage built entirely from letters and a stranger's memory.
We loved each other by proxy, Mr. Graham. He loved me through a girl he saw once in Paris in 1918, and I loved him through his letters, but we hardly spent any time together. I don’t have any personal anecdotes about my husband. We didn’t have time to create any.
The Rose Code · Kate Quinn
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