Kindred by Octavia Butler

The author of this book, and others, is the first writer in the science fiction genre to receive the McAuthor Foundation “Genius” grant--so fasten your seat belts this is good. I read this book for my Sisters Friends book group, and the mixture of science fiction and time travel to highlight where we are in the United States when it comes to race, what has changed and what has very much stayed the same. The story is about Dana, a black woman living in the 70s era Los Angeles. She is unpacking boxes at home when all of a sudden she disappears, and fall into the 1800s of the Pre-Civil War South. Before she can figure out what is going on, she saves a small white child’s life but is almost killed herself. Then she immediately returns home to her time period, but things only get weirder after that--every time the white boy almost dies, she is hauled back to slave times, and the power that he holds over her, literally, is more complex than slavery and at the same time very much the same. This will make you think about race and slavery in a very different light. Mind bending.