Kidd ‘comes home’ to Georgia with her new book

12:30 p.m. Friday. Free. Barnes & Noble Buckhead. 2900 Peachtree Road N.E., Atlanta. 404-261-7747, www.barnesandnoble.com.

No one could ever accuse Sue Monk Kidd of resting on her laurels. With two best-selling novels under her belt — “The Secret Life of Bees” became a major motion picture starring Queen Latifah and Dakota Fanning — she could’ve just coasted and waited for George Clooney to call about “doing lunch.”

Instead, the Sylvester, Ga., native took on arguably her toughest writing challenge yet with "The Invention of Wings" (Viking, $27.95). It spins the parallel, mostly imagined sagas of two young women — slave and reluctant slave owner — as each pursues her own version of liberation across 35 years. It's fiction with its roots in pre-Civil War era Charleston, S.C., fact. Sarah Grimke, whom readers first meet when she's given Hetty (born "Handful") as an 11th birthday present, was a real-life abolitionist and early feminist who historical records indicate received a 10-year-old slave girl from her parents.

While Kidd could draw on written accounts by and about Grimke as a starting point, she was largely on her own when it came to creating the character of Hetty, whose real-life counterpart died young.

It seems at least one person thinks Kidd did a superb job. Oprah Winfrey made “The Invention of Wings” the latest selection for her Oprah’s Book Club 2.0, promising readers “It is going to wow you.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution spoke by phone with Kidd, 65, who’ll make two appearances in metro Atlanta later this week.

Q: What one word best captures the spirit of this very spirited novel?

A: The first thing that pops in my mind is "freedom." It's a quest by two women who are really struggling, fighting for their wings, for two very different kinds of freedom. The second thing it's about is finding courage: the courage to voice to ourselves who we really are and to even dare to change the world. Sarah Grimke certainly did that in her own way.

Q: Why not just write the real-life story of how Sarah and her younger sister, Angelina (another character in the novel), made enormously important — and controversial — contributions to the anti-slavery cause?

A: I wasn't that interested in writing a historical account — that has been done, and done very well. I wanted to bring them to life in a thickly imagined story. I believe in the power of story. It's another portal into the truth and can take us different places than a biography can.

Q: How did Hetty/Handful become a major character whose first person-narrated story unfolds in alternating chapters with Sarah’s?

A: I did have this sketchy fragment of an idea that two sisters would be great characters, and once I discovered the Grimke sisters, I wanted to write a novel about them. As I did more reading, I realized I had to represent the other world in this story, that of an enslaved character. Both worlds had to be there and have a comparable substance and weight to their stories.

Q: Did you have any qualms about writing in the voice of an early-19th-century African-American female?

A: Starting off, I was going to write the Hetty/Handful character in third person. It seemed like a wiser choice for me. Yet very early on, I realized she needed to speak in first person. As a novelist, I really love first person; its intimacy lets me into the character's mind and heart.

Q: Why “wiser?”

A: It was daunting enough to take on American slavery. I so badly wanted to represent the character of Handful with dignity and love and boldness. I wanted to do her justice, and I was nervous about it. I tried to empathetically be with this character and understand her as much as I could. I couldn't pretend to understand what it was like, because I didn't live it. The best I could do was to try and empathize.

Q: What’s it like when Oprah calls and says, in effect, “I want to let the world know how much I love your book”?

A: I think the feeling I have most is gratitude. I'm very grateful she read the book and loved it and endorsed it in this way. Will it give it more exposure? I suppose so. And that's what writers love …. I like to have readers!"

Q: It also brings a lot more obligations publicity-wise. You live in Florida. Does Georgia feel like just one more stop in the midst of a major publicity tour?

A: Coming to Georgia is coming home. My family is still there. My mother and father still live in Sylvester and will be at the event in Atlanta. At least two of my brothers are coming, too. You can't take the Georgia out of me!