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The Invention of Wings: A Novel Audiobook
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Publisher Description
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees and the forthcoming novel The Book of Longings, a novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world.
Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.
Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.
As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.
Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better.
This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.
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"I really enjoyed listening to the author narrate both protagonists and I was thrilled to learn that the Grimke sisters were actual historical abolitionist feminists!!"
— maia (5 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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“Fans of Kidd’s novel will be delighted.”
— Publishers Weekly (audio review) -
“Incredibly satisfying to read.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“An exceptional audiobook—this story is not to be missed.”
— Library Journal (starred audio review) -
“This richly imagined narrative brings both black history and women’s history to life with an unsentimental story of two women who became sisters under the skin—Handful, a slave in body whose mind roves freely and widely, and ‘owner’ Sarah, whose mind is shackled by family and society.”
— Library Journal (starred review) -
“In a seamless, almost musical narration, Kathleen McInerney slowly builds tempo as she peels off the layers of this fine listening experience.”
— Booklist (starred audio review) -
“Kidd paints a moving portrait of two women inextricably linked by the horrors of slavery…Kidd is a master storyteller, and, with smooth and graceful prose, she immerses the reader in the lives of these fascinating women as they navigate religion, family drama, slave revolts, and the abolitionist movement.”
— Booklist (starred review) -
“Kidd hits her stride and avoids sentimental revisionism with this historical novel about the relationship between a slave and the daughter of slave owners in antebellum Charleston.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Awards
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Oprah’s Book Club Selection
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A #1 New York Times bestseller
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Selected for the January 2014 Indie Next List
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Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award
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A USA Today bestseller
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A #1 Los Angeles Times bestseller
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A #1 Washington Post bestseller
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A #1 nWall Street Journaln bestseller
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A Publishers Weekly bestseller
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A #1 San Francisco Chronicle bestseller
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A Chicago Tribune bestseller
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A Library Journal bestseller of 2014
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An AudioFile Best Audiobook of the Year for 2014
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A BookPage Best Book of 2014
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One of Audible’s Best Audiobooks of 2014
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Selected for the 2015 ALA Listen List for Outstanding Audiobook Narration
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Nominated for the 2015 Audie Award for Fiction
The Invention of Wings Listener Reviews
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Barbara Stratton, 8/3/2022
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brenda leger, 1/6/2021
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Paula Sullivan, 8/5/2017
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" The theatrical quality of the narration and the wonderfully developed characters in the rivieting tale of the Deep South make this one of the best audiobooks ever! "
— Blithe Spirit, 6/13/2016
About Sue Monk Kidd
Sue Monk Kidd is the author of the New York Times bestselling
novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair, the
memoirs Traveling with Pomegranates, which she wrote with her
daughter Ann Kidd Taylor; The Dance of the Dissident Daughter; and When the Heart Waits, and Firstlight,
a collection of her early writings. The Secret Life of Bees has
spent more than 220 weeks on the New York Times bestseller
list and was adapted into an award-winning movie starring Dakota Fanning, Queen
Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, and Alicia Keys. The Mermaid Chair, a #1 New
York Times bestseller, was adapted into a television movie. Both of
her novels have been translated into more than twenty-four languages. The recipient of
numerous literary awards, Sue lives with her husband on an island off the coast
of Florida.
About the Narrators
Jenna Lamia is an actress and award-winning audiobook narrator. She has won the prestigious Audie Award, as well as more than a dozen AudioFile Earphones Awards. Her narration of The Book of Polly was named a 2018 Outstanding Audiobook Narration by RUSA. She narrated Mary E. Pearson’s The Adoration of Jenna Fox, which won a YALSA Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults award, and Carol Lynch Williams’ The Chosen One, for which she received the 2010 Audie Award for Best Female Solo Narration. She has appeared on and off-Broadway, and her acting credits include appearances on Oz, Law & Order: SVU, and NYPD Blue. She has attended Amherst College, New York University, and the Sorbonne in Paris.
Adepero Oduye is a Nigerian American actress who was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a graduate of Cornell University and has studied acting with Wynn Handman, Austin Pendleton, and Susan Batson. Oduye first starred as Alike in the award winning short film Pariah. Among other shorts she has starred in Water, The Tested, and Sub Rosa. She has also made guest appearances on such television programs as Louie and two Law & Order series.