The Invention of Wings

Fiction by Sue Monk Kidd.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was an awesome book, about a pair of girls in early nineteenth century Charleston. One of the girls is a privileged daughter of a landed family. The other girl is a slave.

They are the same age and grow up together, but of course their lives are incredibly different.

Obviously this is not the first story written on this subject, but what I particularly liked about this book was its honesty. No one was a saint.

The Old South was not populated exclusively with evil masters and abused slaves, nor was it filled with happy darkies and their benevolent owners.

The truth is not exactly Gone With the Wind and not exactly Uncle Tom's Cabin. Human beings, both black and white, are not caricatures of Good and Evil. We are complicated and conflicted.

I think The Invention of Wings does a fantastic job of finding the middle ground where the real people of history lived.



One note to remember: If you get the e-book, choose the one without Oprah's comments included with the text. Everyone seems to find that distracting and annoying. (This was not a problem with the hardback copy I read.)