The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis - Historical Fiction Novel About African American Family Saga | Perfect for Book Clubs & Literary Enthusiasts

This is a wonderful novel about a family's move from Georgia to Philadelphia, South to the North. AYANA MATHIS helped me keep track of the time in American History by adding the year at the beginning of the chapter. THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE begins in 1925. The novel ends in 1980. It is amazing how many important issues are covered in the novel: marriage, death, child rearing, Mental health, motherhood, family harmony or disunity. Really, I began to understand more deeply all families are really alike in one way. There is the struggle to understand one another with love while each person in the family reaches out for change. I would add change to the list of issues involved in the novel.Hattie is like a river. Her tributaries, children, branch out and widen. Each branch of the river seems to grapple for away to gain personal strength away from the mother figure. Hattie is portrayed as remote but not hateful. I am use to mothers being portrayed as very good or very bad. Ayana Mathis did the miraculous by making this woman like a friend or aunt I might know. I didn't grow to really like her or know much about her until Cassie and Sala made their entrance. I think Hattie had become less indifferent by the time Sala, her grandchild, entered the world. When I read her name Sala, I kept thinking of the word Selah in the Holy Bible. I decided to look up Cassie's daughter's name. It means"a large or important room or hall; esp : one used in a home for the reception and entertainment of guests sala, dining room -- Manila Times.This definition makes me think Sala will become the change needed in this family. Like a large, wide open room she will gather the family back together again, resew torn patches and dust the areas that haven't been dusted in ages. In the end she is the harmony, the music spoken of by Ayana Mathis. "It is really something to feel music, to feel as though one has become music.....I remember that ecstasy." I think it's the only time where she takes time away from nurturing children to thinking thoughts about all these child-adults in her life. I see her, at this point, as less introverted and more aware that change takes action or patterns are repeated."Here we are sixty years out of Georgia, she thought, a new generation has been born, and there's still the same wounding and the same pain. I can't allow it. She shook her head. I can't allow it."I felt all the painful crosses of burdens fell on the shoulders of Cassie. Simply because when the mind is sick the whole body is sick. The Banshees drive Cassie away from Sala, her only child. Cassie and Sala were my favorite characters. As Sala pushes toward her mother, Cassie pulls away because of confusion and anxiety and fear. I thought about how difficult it is to reach out for someone you love knowing you can never reach their soul. It's like a wall as strong and as high as the Wall of Jericho is disallowing you from touching the people you love so much. This is Sala's legacy I suppose.Before she can even begin to dream some force is reaching out to steal her humanity and her true self. However, I don't think Hattie will allow it this time. Hatties thinks "not too old to weather another sacrifice."For me the story began again with Sala. I wanted to know where she would go in life, how long it would take to leave behind the emotional ties of her mother and what she would despise and love in life. Cassie, Sala's mother, uses better words to describe my thoughts about her daughter. "What I feel for Sala has eclipsed anything I thought was love before she was born; it has made me wonder if I ever loved anything before her. As for Mother, I think that I did love her. I think I still do. That's what I told Sala." These lines make me think Mother and daughter love is far more complicated than the love between a mother and son. This is only a personal guess. However, Ayana Mathis made my mind spin, twirl and fall off its axis thinking of the Psychology behind all types of relationships even alternative lifestyles. I have begun to understand on a deeper level that relationships are what it's all about. Relationships keep us balanced or unbalanced. What better place to begin a primer on relationships than in our families? This is the beginning of all that comes before and what will come after we have long gone to our graves. Our voices whisper relationships. Keep trying. Don't give up. Try and change the pattern because a small family become wide and strong like the roots of a tree. "Though they were small and struggling. Philadelphia and Jubilee were already among those luminous souls, already the beginning of a new nation."nprbooksauthorsayana-mathisHattie, the title character, is still a teen when she takes up with August, mostly "because he was a secret from her mama, and because it thrilled her to go out with a country boy she thought beneath her." After a shotgun wedding, they marry. She gives birth to twins, Philadelphia and Jubilee, who die of pneumonia in the first chapter, a fact that, unfortunately, is noted on the dust jacket (and why I don't feel bad revealing it here). This sets the tone for the tale. The next chapter, Floyd 1948, follows their musician son. Each successive chapter spotlights the life of one of the Shepherd children (though one chapter follows two, for reasons that become obvious, and one concerns a grandchild) during a short, specific period in their adult life. Siblings sometimes appear in each others' stories. Only Hattie shows up (if I remember right) in every chapter.About halfway through the book, what came to mind was that the there sure was a lot of violence, adultery, drunkenness, gambling and other irresponsible behavior in the book, as well as an abundance of intramarital and extramarital sex. But, by that time, I was committed to learning about the rest of the family, so I continued. Then I reached the chapter entitled Alice and Billups 1954, which was different than the others. I loved it. Franklin 1969 was even better and that continued (better and better, bleaker and bleaker) throughout. As I neared the end of the story and realized what was about to happen, I knew that that event would have really ruined it for me and thought, "Don't do it." It came as a bit of a surprise that the author chose not to go down that (commonly traveled) road and let readers down with a happening that didn't (in my mind) fit the circumstances. I'll bet others will feel differently.What I loved best, besides the varying personalities of the Shepherd kids and their dealings with diversity, was the excellent writing, both in character development and descriptions. I include my top five favorite excerpts below:(p 37) "The sun rose in an angry orange ball. Could be another earth, another earth just like this one all up in flames. The upper sky was still a dark layer of purple clouds. [ ] turned the key in the ignition and thought, I should hang myself like Judas."(p 78) `"You act like your whole life was one long January afternoon...The trees are always barren and there's not a flower on the vine."'(p 139) "...when assembled, the [Shepherd] family put her in mind of a group of roaming solitary creatures rounded up and caged together like captured leopards."(p 185) "She felt as though her insides were nothing but air--if she got up from her bed, she would bounce slowly along the floor like a balloon."(p 233) "Sala woke in the deepest part of the night, when the furrowing, burrowing creatures are quiet in their dens and the night hunters have eaten their fill or given up the chase."In summary, a strong start and fantastic finish make this story my favorite of the (non-classic) Oprah picks. Also good: The Help by Kathryn Stockett, All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones, and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.The Twelve Tribes of Hattie starts with the Great Migration that began in 1916 and from which 6 million African Americans migrated from the segregated south to the north. Hattie is amongst the first generation of migrants. The novel progresses in time until 1980, with each chapter taking a snapshot of the life of one of her children or her granddaughter.The chapter entitled Ruthie 1951 is evocative of the blues mood of much of the novel. RL Burnside’s doleful ‘My Woman Done Left Me’ would be a fitting soundtrack much of the characters’ lives. This mood is countered by sporadic thirsts for life, particularly in the character of Hattie, and best depicted in her relationship with Lawrence, until they move in with each other.Whilst the Great Migration is to be celebrated for offering greater (economic and social) freedoms to African Americans, Hattie’s life story in the north leaves an indelible and somewhat negative imprint on her children. August and Lawrence get off lightly. As fathers, they are seemingly incidental. I was left wondering if this was a statement about the marginalisation of black fatherhood in so-called black matriarchal families and the extent to which this was being attributed in part to the emasculation of black men in white America (as seen when Pearl and Benny journey back south, and Benny is rendered impotent in front of the four white men who reduce him to ‘shucking and shuffling’.The novel also touches on various other themes such as religion as an escape route from life’s drudgery and the preferential treatment reserved for light-skinned women in African American communities.There are obvious influences of Toni Morrison in this Ayana Mathis’s debut novel, which is well worth reading.The book tells the story of the challenging and unfullfilled life of Hattie and the trials and tribulations of her many children. It certainly has its fair share of magical, poignant and heartbreaking moments. However, I agree with some of the other reviews that it was just a bit too disjointed. Each chapter is a snapshot of a different moment in each of the children's lives and, whilst it is always good for an author to leave some details to the imagination, it left me wanting to know too much more. Although we find out what happens to Hattie and her husband in the end, I felt that many of the children's stories were often cut off and not returned to and thus the book's challenging themes were never fully explored. Overall a good read, and certainly thought-provoking and challenging. However, perhaps 3.5 stars rather than 4 would be more appropriate. That being said, I would be happy to read more of the Author's work.Wonderfully poetic writing. Toni Morrisonesc in understanding of women's strength and weaknesses. Hattie's tormented relationship with her children - deep protective love expressed as harshness. Could bottle some phrases. Each child's story is beautifully consise.With glowing reviews and recommendations from such as Oprah this book has much to live up to. In fact it is a really good read.Hattie leaves Georgia for Philadelphia age 15. She's pregnant with twins, away from home and with a man she's not sure about. By the end of the first chapter her babies are dead and the book continues to follow her family. Each vignette is linked to black history and the characters are clear.No book could live up to the earnest weight placed on this one but it is good.amazing story, so well written,I left each chapter wanting to know more about each characterWould definitely recommend, great story