Kindred (1979), by Octavia E Butler

 

Dana is a black young woman, living in 1976 California. She’s achieved her dream: becoming a writer. Just moved to her new apartment with Kevin (her white husband). Also a writer, a successful one at that.

They’re busy placing their many books, when suddenly Dana feels unwell, experiencing some sort of dizziness. To his astonishment, Kevin sees her dissolving before his very eyes. To magically materialize again a few minutes later.

Dana appears to be deeply shocked; and what she tells Kevin is quite weird.

While vanishing, she lost sight of the room, only to find herself in a natural setting, with trees and grass all around. And a river, where a white redheaded boy seemed to be drowning. Still dazed and confused, she rushes to save him.

What happened? Well, a disturbance of spacetime. And where she ended up, she finds out, is not California, but somewhere in Maryland: like 3000 miles away. And most of all, it was not 1976, but 1819!

The redhead's name is Rufus, who happens to be her ancestor (probably through the rape of a slave black woman?). The spacetime disturbance repeats itself; Dana comes to understand that there's now a strange connection between her and Rufus.

Everytime Rufus is in trouble, or in a life threatening situation, Dana is pushed back in time. To the early 1800s Maryland plantation of the boy’s family or whereabouts; where black slaves live, work and die.

On every occasion Dana is sent back to antebellum Maryland, she spends more time there. From hours to months; she will have to learn how to survive on the plantation. Also make a sense of the experience, as a free woman of the future.

Dana experiences the brutality of the 1820s, a time when a set of people owned the lives of another set of people. This gives the past a rough, more aggressive turn. As if 1819 felt more real and tangible than (comparatively) easy going 1976.

The reader experiences the same shock. The immersion in 1819 is quite realistic. Along with Dana, you sense 1819 as well.

Kindred was first published in 1979. But to me this is the finding of the year, or the decade.