Kindred

Content Ratings

Moderate Romance

Dana's marriage to a white man is central to the story; the contrast between their equal modern partnership and the sexual violence of slavery creates sustained moral tension; a coercive sexual relationship between a slaveholder and an enslaved woman is depicted honestly.

Intense Themes

The novel is an immersive, sustained confrontation with the daily physical and psychological violence of American chattel slavery, the complicity required to survive it, and the impossibility of remaining psychologically whole under its conditions.

High Violence

Whippings, physical brutality, sexual violence against enslaved people, and the constant threat of death are depicted throughout; Butler renders the violence of slavery with historical accuracy and moral weight.

Synopsis

A Black woman named Dana living in 1976 Los Angeles is repeatedly and involuntarily pulled back in time to an antebellum Maryland plantation whenever the life of a white slaver ancestor is threatened, and must navigate the brutal reality of American slavery while protecting herself and others. Butler's masterwork uses time travel not as an adventure device but as an unflinching immersion in the daily horror of slavery. Essential, devastating, and unlike any other time travel novel.