The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

I’ve mentioned The Twelve Tribes of Hattie numerous times on this blog.  I believe I’ve called it phenomenal and wonderful.  And it was!  Oh, it totally was.  But, it also wasn’t. 

The writing was the best writing I have read maybe ever.  The story, though, could have been better. 

I think I forgot what imagery was, probably because it’s missing from a lot of today’s fiction.  (And non-fiction, I suppose.)  I also started to expect entertainment and a good story from every book I read, but nothing else.  None of the books I’ve read in the last few years have done a good job of conveying little details that can bring a reader into the story. 

I’m not sure if I’m even explaining it properly, so I’ll give some examples.  I work with kids at a before school program.  We have parties for each month and for a few holidays.  Last year during one of the parties, a teacher came into the cafeteria to talk to one of the girls.  The kids were sitting at tables we had set up to form a square, and the blinds were up and the sun was just starting to rise, so we left the lights off.  As the teacher was waiting for the girl, she came next to me and said, “Look how precious they all look sitting together, with the sunlight hitting their faces.”

And they did.  I’m not saying that the sentence was particularly poetic.  It wasn’t.  But the fact that she noticed the way the sun was hitting them and that she wanted me to notice, too, stuck with me.  You’ve got to be so mindful to notice things like that, especially when you’re busy.  Since then I’ve tried to stop and appreciate that kind of thing, no matter how much my mind is racing at any given moment. 

Writers should include such things in their stories.  It’s the kind of small detail that can transport you to the place they’re writing about. 

A few months ago my friend got married and I was at the rehearsal dinner.  Everyone went out onto the front lawn to practice the ceremony and I was taking some pictures.  When my friend started to talk, I had just finished taking a picture of her parents, and I noticed her mom look at her dad.  I’m not a parent so I don’t know what that feeling was, but it was clearly a bit of happiness and pride and maybe some disbelief because their kid was doing this great big life thing.  I may or may not have started to tear up when I caught that glance. 

Now, I read the Twilight books (regrettably).  Nothing from the wedding scene stuck with me.  I know they get married, but I can’t remember anything from the wedding.  That’s because Stephanie Meyer didn’t include those fleeting, precious moments.  And she certainly doesn’t use imagery. 

My point in all this is that Ayana Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, is a master at employing imagery.  From the first pages I knew I was reading something beautiful.

Check this out:

Hattie clambered from the train, her skirt still hemmed with Georgia mud, the dream of Philadelphia round as a marble in her mouth and the fear of it a needle in her chest.

That is one of many, many examples of brilliant writing Mathis gives us throughout the novel.  There were several times I needed to stop reading and take a breath and wrap my head around the sentence I just read.  Really.  Her writing is exquisite.

My one complaint has to do with the plot, or lack thereof.  The story is structured in such a way that the chapters are each devoted to one of Hattie’s “tribes.”  Her eleven children and one of her grandchildren make up the twelve tribes of Hattie.  My problem is that it doesn’t read like a novel.  I felt like I was waiting for the climax for a very long time but never got to it.  In each of the chapters – stories – we hear a little about that particular child.  Sometimes other characters are interwoven into the siblings’ stories, but rarely and just barely.  Hattie is mentioned enough where we don’t forget that she’s what they all have in common, but we don’t get to see a whole lot of character development, for Hattie or the tribes.  Each of the stories aren’t necessarily related.  There’s never a sense of congruity.  To me, the book felt more like a series of portraits than it did a story. 

The good thing about this structure is that it lent itself to some of what I think Mathis was trying to depict: the lingering effects of slavery, the aftermath of emancipation and of Jim Crow, the trials of poverty and how it strains emotions, health, and relationships, and racism.  The struggles each of Hattie’s children face are different, but they all are caused or worsened by the effects of racism and of poverty. 

The book was fascinating and while some of the chapters were somewhat boring for me, most were interesting and kept me reading.  Of course I’d recommend it to everyone, as the writing alone is something every person should get to experience.  But I think a lot of folks who read this book were expecting it to sound more like The Help, and it doesn’t.  Not all books about race are going to read the same.  This book felt more like a string of stories, and if you’re someone who lives and dies with plot, you might not enjoy it.  I think I’m going to read it again just so I can circle the best passages and save them for later.  Overall, if I was rating this, I’d give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars.  If the writing wasn’t so exceptional, I’d probably give it a 3 or a 3.5.  English teachers everywhere should use this book to show students how to use literary devices.     

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Charlotte