Octavia Butler's Kindred might not appear as startlingly postmodernist as other novels we've read ( Mumbo Jumbo, for example) but her writing presents a powerful challenge to the kind of unilateral, hegemonic narrative that postmodern texts sought to deconstruct. The story unfolds on a Maryland plantation decades before emancipation, grounding Dana's experience in a time when slavery would have felt virtually inescapeable. Dana realizes that the rift between her time and Rufus' time is more than temporal or spatial, but the two environments she's pulled between demonstrate completely different assumptions about humanity. She and Kevin first seek to understand their new environment through their history books from back home, which provide essential information about past laws and regulations. However, the knowledge found in history books can't capture the real experience of living as a slave on Weylin's plantation. Recounting facts about such a brutal era...