I’ve always been a fan of science fiction. My earliest “adult” reads were Stephen King, who often treads the line between science fiction and horror. I devoured many of the science fiction classics as a teenager, but somehow missed this one. Kindred was first published in 1979. I didn’t read it until 2023. My bad. My very, very bad.

Dana is an aspiring African-American author working a dreary temp job to put food on the table while she’s hoping to write the great American novel. She’s married to Kevin, a white man with more resources than she has. As the book opens, we learn that Dana’s arm has been amputated, and her family believes Kevin is behind it.

However, the story of what happened for Dana to arrive at that point is much more unbelievable. One day while in the kitchen of their house, Dana has a strange feeling overcome her and she disappears before Kevin’s eyes. Dana finds herself in Maryland in 1812 and prevents the drowning of a boy named Rufus. Unfortunately, a black woman holding a young white boy in 1812 is met with anger and violence, even if she did save his life. Before Dana can experience anything more, she finds herself back in her kitchen in California in 1976.

Through her family bible, she knows that one of her ancestors was named Rufus. Dana and Kevin theorize that she was pulled back in time to prevent him from dying or she would not exist. There are a number of close calls for Rufus that pulls Dana back in time to save him.

As a “modern” woman in the late 1970’s, Dana struggles to adapt to her “place” in the Antebellum South. Slavery was something she read about, but now she experiences it while at the same time needing to keep Rufus alive. She tries to teach him to grow beyond the world he knows and see the slaves on the plantation as human beings. At one point she meets Alice, the woman who will give birth to her ancestor and tries to help them forge a real relationship, rather than a mastr/slave one. Alice is a free woman, although her first love is one of the slaves on Rufus’ father’s plantation.

Rufus’ father is very hard on him. He expects him to one day inherit the plantation. This is one of the things that causes so much trouble for Rufus in terms of staying alive. His mother also has mental issues and is terribly jealous of Dana whenshe appears, enen though she recognizes that Dana has saved his life a number of times. Dana seems to believe there is good in Rufus and spends a lot of time trying to draw it out.

One of the times she is pulled back, Kevin grabs on to her and travels back in time with her. He poses as her master to convince everyone that she is his property and help them “fit” in better with the times. It seems Dana must feel her life is in danger to go back to her own time, and whenshe does, Kevin is stranded. Only a few minutes, hours, or days pass in 1976 and time Dana travels back in time, no matter how long she is there. When Dana is called back againby Rufus being in peril, she finds Kevin has been there without her for five years!

There are many twists and turns to the story, but the main idea I came away from Kindred is that Butler used this fantastic piece of science fiction to demonstrate why the slaves didn’t rise up against the masters they outnumbered. Despite her modern thinking, Dana fall into it, with her hope for changing who Rufus is. She accepts treatment she never would accept otherwise due to that hope, even as she attempts to get Rufus to see that slavery is wrong. As the saying goes, “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” Many of these slaves had family, so they behaved in hopes they would stay together. The ones who didn’t have those connections were more likely to rebel or runoff. Because Dana sees it as her mission that Rufus and Alice conceive her ancestor, she sticks around instead of going north as Kevin does when he is alone in the time. There’s also the fact that she doesn’t have any paperwork showing her to be a free black woman, although she and Kevin could have left together with him claiming her as his property.

I also liked seeing the changes in Dana in relationto the other slaves on the plantation. When she first encounters them on her second trip back, she seems to think she’s better than them, due to the time she comes from where she has more freedom than they do. However, the longer she is there, the more she develops that sense of them being people who are doing what they have to do to get along. It goes back to the families not wanting to be broken up, or not being beaten, or worse.

The characters here are all well-rounded. They aren’t all completely evil nor completely good. Even Rufus’ father has a good side to him. There is depth to the characters that makes them real to the reader. Kevin goes back in time with Dana intending to protect her, but he acclimates only too well to the time period in some ways. Dana isn’t afraid to call him on it, though.

Kindred is a book everyone should read and should be taught in schools. Of course, that means it is on the banned book list. Why would we want young adults to have a better grasp of what slavery is like, rather than Ron DeSantis’ goal of saying slavery was good for black people. It has also been banned in many prisons, which astonishes me. This is definitely one of the top 10 books I’ve ever read. I’m just ashamed it took me this long to find it.