Likewise, Kidd’s habit of cutting away from some of Handful’s torment - particularly when she is maimed in the Charleston workhouse - may strike some as squeamish. Hearing them sing, she thinks to herself: “their gaiety wasn’t contentment, but survival.” She is right, of course, but it will be hundreds of pages before she truly relates to her family’s human chattel on a personal level. “It pricked and fastened.” Their relationship is complicated, but using the language of a seamstress, Kidd makes it real.ĭespite its pleasures, this book does have some false notes, as when Sarah shows a bit too much insight into the life of the slaves, too early on. The Invention of Wings is a fictionalized biography of Sarah Moore Grimké, together with her sister Angelina Nina Moore Grimké, the only known Southern white woman who took part in the abolition movement. “It was always there, a roundness in my chest, a pin cushion,” she thinks.

When, toward the novel’s satisfying conclusion, she recalls a moment of girlhood closeness with Sarah, she has trouble defining her ambivalent affection. The writer Sue Monk Kidd found the voice that her new book needed when she became smitten with an enslaved girl who is only a. However, once again, Handful’s journey is by far the tougher. Sue Monk Kidds first novel, THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES, spent 2.5 years on the New York Times bestseller list, and has sold over 8 million copies worldwide. Key to both women’s growth is their friendship. THE INVENTION OF WINGS by Sue Monk Kidd was selected as an Oprah Book Club 2.0 pick on December 10, 2013. “Now, sirs,” she says, paraphrasing the real Grimké, “kindly take your feet off our necks.”

Sarah and Nina are sisters they both decide to goshow more content Sarah ignored the fact that she could be thrown in prison if she goes. When she refuses a suitor, for example, she understates her pain: “I’d chosen the regret I could live with best, that’s all.” This demure determination surfaces again when she rejects the abolitionist leaders’ command to give up her fight for women’s equality. The book The Invention of Wings Sue Monk Kidd explains the difficulties of the abolition of slavery in Charleston South Carolina during the 19th century.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd