The Twelve Tribes Of Hattie: Book Review

I didn’t want to like The Twelve Tribes Of Hattie. Oprah recommended it. Then, came the endorsement from my mother, who goes for even deeper, more meaningful books than the Big O.

12 Tribes was both deep and meaningful. It also had a whole cast of characters that I could not keep straight. The book’s chapters deal with each of the 11 children born to long suffering Hattie and her husband, August. Tired of the injustice of the South in 1920, Hattie and August become part of the Great Migration to the Northeast. They’re doing it for a better life for their kids.

Wow. The lives their kids end up having don’t seem all that better. As different as the kids end up being, they’re united by a common thread, and that thread is suffering. The book was like a 200 page “Air Supply” song. It could have been subtitled “Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places.” It had: love found, love lost, love found but in a person with the wrong genitalia, love found but with one’s mother’s ex-lover, repeat the cycle…

Whew. I was a soap opera fan in college, and I know my way around a convoluted family tree, but this plot was something else to keep track of entirely.

But, in the end, the book was good. Mostly because author Ayana Mathis nailed the emotions with details so vivid I remembered them days later. It’s a story about longing, love and the simultaneous freedom and prison that is family. Maybe it didn’t go down as smooth as an Air Supply song (“I’m All Out Of Love”, anyone?), but it left me with more wisdom too, a trade off that’s worth it.  (Click this link for more information about The Twelve Tribes Of Hattie, which is available on amazon.com for around $16.)