The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
Author: Ayana Mathis
Desc: A debut of extraordinary distinction: Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family. In 1923 fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives to meet a world that will not love them a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation. Beautiful and devastating Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious harrowing unexpectedly uplifting and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream Mathis’s first novel heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.