Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Science fictions meets historical fiction? I was initially so confused about this book but it turned in to me reading WAY past my bedtime and getting a book hangover the next day. This is amazing and new and fresh and Oh My Goodness Where is Kevin???


Dana just turned 26. It's 1976 and she's married to Kevin. They have bought their first house together to solve a problem: neither of their apartments could hold all of their combined books. I love them already.

While unpacking, Dana gets dizzy, things become fuzzy and far away and she's suddenly on the bank of a river, hearing the screams of a boy who is drowning. She wastes no time wondering what happened, she'd out there grabbing the boy and performing CPR to save him. Despite his idiot mother's hysteria (she is an idiot, we get more to that later), Dana does save the boy only to find herself at the business end of a gun. Things go fuzzy and she's back home with Kevin, wet and muddy.

A few minutes away for her was 3 seconds for Kevin. What just happened??


Later, while eating dinner, it happens again. Same boy, this time setting curtains on fire and trying to burn down the house. Dana saves him again but this time questions him. Who is he? Rufus Weylen. He freely uses the N-word and says that Dana talks funny. Dana puts two and two together and realizes this (white) boy is part of her (black) family tree. And she's now in Antebellum South. As a black woman.

Well, shit.

Dana keeps getting called back to the past when Rufus' life is in danger. She saves him, if only because he's needed in her family tree so she can exist. But having to live life as a slave until she can return her to her time is more than she can handle. Back in her time, Dana and Kevin figure out that Rufus can bring her to him when his life is in danger and she can leave if her life is in danger. At one point, Kevin is holding Dana when she's called and he travels back with her. Life as a white man isn't terrible, but life back then is still miserable when you are used to modern convenience. Luckily, Kevin isn't whipped or beaten on a regular basis. How in the world Dana withstood this, I have no idea.

This was such a great story. I've never read anything by Butler before.....but I'm about to stock my library with her books.