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“It pricked and fastened.” Their relationship is complicated, but using the language of a seamstress, Kidd makes it real.ĭespite its pleasures, this book does have some false notes, as when Sarah shows a bit too much insight into the life of the slaves, too early on. “It was always there, a roundness in my chest, a pin cushion,” she thinks. When, toward the novel’s satisfying conclusion, she recalls a moment of girlhood closeness with Sarah, she has trouble defining her ambivalent affection. However, once again, Handful’s journey is by far the tougher. Key to both women’s growth is their friendship. “Now, sirs,” she says, paraphrasing the real Grimké, “kindly take your feet off our necks.”

When she refuses a suitor, for example, she understates her pain: “I’d chosen the regret I could live with best, that’s all.” This demure determination surfaces again when she rejects the abolitionist leaders’ command to give up her fight for women’s equality.