Sue Monk Kidd says her ‘Wings’ is more relevant now

When Sue Monk Kidd’s novel “The Invention of Wings” was first released in January 2014, Ferguson hadn’t yet happened. Neither had Baltimore.

Racial tensions were real, but they weren’t dominating the 24-hour news cycle like they are now.

During a recent telephone interview from a book tour stop in Charleston, S.C., Kidd said her novel about the relationship between a young slave girl and her reluctant, future abolitionist owner is even more relevant now than when it was first published.

Kidd, best known for her 2004 novel “The Secret Life of Bees” and the 2008 movie that followed, said “The Invention of Wings” has been a perfect springboard for discussions about race relations as she’s toured the country in support of its paperback release. The tour stops in Wichita on Thursday, when Kidd will read from her novel, sign copies and take questions during a Watermark Books event held off site at Grace Presbyterian Church, 5002 E. Douglas.

“I think we’re at a very critical place, and it’s very disturbing to see a lot of this happening,” Kidd said. “As far as we’ve come with racism, we have a very, very long way to go, and I am acutely aware of that now.”

Race has always been a topic that has gripped Kidd, who grew up in Georgia during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. She witnessed many instances of racism as a white teen, she said, and those scenes helped form her not only as a person but as a writer.

Kidd was living in Charleston when she found the inspiration for “The Invention of Wings,” she said. She was visiting the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, N.Y., when she came across a display about Sarah and Angelina Grimke, identified as two of the country’s first female abolitionists. Kidd had never heard of them, even though the sisters grew up in Charleston.

“I was so in awe that they were from Charleston, and I didn’t know about them,” Kidd said. “I felt really bad about that. I came back home and began to learn everything I could, and what I discovered was so inspiring to me. I knew right away I wanted to write about them.”

Kidd said she decided to focus on Sarah, the sister she most identified with. Reading one of Sarah’s journals, Kidd learned that she had been given a young slave named Hetty as a gift. Although the real Hetty died young, Kidd said, she decided to make her a major character in the novel, too. The girls’ stories are told in alternating chapters. Sarah, growing up in an affluent Southern family, is horrified by the injustices around her and begins to speak out. Hetty, a spirited girl who also goes by the name her mother gave her – Handful – is hardly a quiet, complacent slave.

“From the beginning, I felt like I wanted to tell the story of an enslaved character along with Sarah’s story,” she said. “Sarah and Hetty were quite close together. She taught her to read. Hetty died very young, not long after Sarah acquired her. I don’t think she reached adolescence. But Sarah was quite bereft about it all, and when I saw that, I just knew in my bones there was my other character. I could imagine what that would have been like.”

The story isn’t just about race, Kidd said. During her research, she learned that Sarah and her sister found that not only were many people unreceptive to their abolitionist message, they certainly did not like that it was being delivered by women.

“They ended up going on the road with their massive crusade, which engendered backlash,” Kidd said. “And in the midst of that, people started to say, ‘Women aren’t supposed to speak to men. Get back in the parlor.’ And they suddenly were confronted with this whole other issue of, ‘Do I have the right to speak as a woman?’ They were way ahead of other women pioneers.”

Shortly after it was released, Oprah Winfrey chose “The Invention of Wings” for her Oprah’s Book Club 2.0. Her Harpo Films also acquired the film rights to the book. The project is in development, Kidd said, and last she heard, the script was being written, though “these things seem to take forever.”

Though she is nervous about turning Sarah and Hetty over to movie producers, it worked out once before, she said. She was happy with the film version of “The Secret Life of Bees,” which starred Dakota Fanning and Queen Latifah.

“I’ve compared it to jumping out of an airplane and praying the parachute opens,” Kidd said. “But I felt like with ‘The Secret Life of Bees,’ it did open. I was pleased with that movie, and I’m hopeful for this one, too.”

This story was originally published May 8, 2015 at 9:48 AM with the headline "Sue Monk Kidd says her ‘Wings’ is more relevant now."