Didn't put this down willingly

Kindred
by Octavia E. Butler




Time-travel story--modern-day woman goes back to experience slavery--without cliches.  How'd she take such a subject and create a novel so convincing, so god-awful realistic, and so impossibly unpredictable?

I'm at a loss for words.

Remember this if you're trying to decide whether to read it--this isn't history.  It's historically authentic (with an occasional slip-up in language), but it's not telling anybody's "universal" history.  It's a woman heart in the breaking--not a man's great American novel.  You'll experience the facts and feelings that made the institution of slavery corrosive and corrupting, bringing out the evil in the best of humanity, but you won't come out with any "lessons learned."  It's not that trite.