Not dying of work now, hooray! I want to discuss my thoughts on Kevin's interactions with Dana throughout the book, because they stood out to me as feeling awkward at times, and I didn't like him much. I'm curious to hear what others think!
I went into this book with only a small idea of what it was about based on the brief synopsis given by folks who were recommending it for our monthly selection. I like going into books with almost no prior knowledge, because it lets my expectations build up based ONLY on the content of the book that I've seen so far. As a result, the beginning of the book left me confused but curious: why the heck had Dana lost her arm?! And who was this Kevin guy who might have attacked her, but didn't? Why were they being so chill about her having lost her arm?
With that frame of mind, I had trouble with some of their dialogue. Towards the beginning of the book, Dana is sent to the river to save Rufus for the first time. This is shocking to both her and Kevin, who is there to witness her disappearing from right in front of him and re-appearing seconds later, behind him.
I had to think about this for a bit: what do you think would happen if your married SO poofed out of existence nearby and re-appeared elsewhere? How would you react?
I'm not sure if I could reasonably answer it, but I think I'd do something like start saying "What the fuck!?" when they were gone, and when they came back, ask something along the lines of "Holy shit, what the fuck just happened?" That's roughly how Kevin reacted at first, but then he saw Dana was shaken and covered in mud, and he kept interrogating her. I can't imagine doing that to my SO, and I especially couldn't imagine the dialogue going like it did in the book:
"What happened?"
I reached up to loosen his grip, but he wouldn't let go. He dropped to his knees beside me.
"Tell me!" he demanded.
Wait, what? That just sounds so foreign to me, and corny, like it's out of a badly acted movie. Why is he freaking out like that? It gets worse after he brings her a blanket:
"Tell me now," said Kevin.
"What?"
"Everything. What happened to you? How did you . . . how did you move like that?"
That struck me as sounding insanely corny. Do people really ever talk like that? The "Everything." seemed particularly forced/unrealistic for natural conversation. But maybe they just have a different relationship than what I'm used to? I don't know. For me, something like "Are you up to talking about it now?" would seem more natural.
So I was a bit skeptical at that point, and his further reaction of telling her that she should just forget about it was really weird to me. He didn't strike me as very emotionally supportive at all.
We got to know a bit more about Kevin and Dana's relationship later, during the chapter The Fall. That part made me think that maybe they really just do have a very different relationship from what I'm used to, and maybe that's why things seemed so awkward to me. They were dating for a very short time before getting engaged (compared to what I'm used to), and the way they got engaged was notably nontraditional. And the way they discussed their families' reactions to the interracial marriage seemed odd to me. I wanted to know more about how Dana felt during that conversation than we got to learn. They talked at each other a bunch about how their family reacted, but I didn't get any real sense of why Dana loved Kevin so much, or how they both felt about their racist relatives. To me, the lack of explanation and emotion made Kevin seem to fit the token of 'a progressive hero' for marrying Dana.
His interactions with her throughout the book didn't help my opinion. He was sometimes supportive, but never really seemed to understand what Dana was going through or really try to help to the extent he should have been able to. He had good philosophy, which made him 'good,' but he didn't really seem all that good. He freaked out when he returned home, but we never really got to understand why that was or what was going on. When Dana cut her wrists to come back, instead of welcoming her and making her feel comfortable, he lectured her about why she shouldn't do that first. When she had some time home for a bit, he told her
"You know, someday, you're going to have to stop dragging that thing [the bag she kept to be prepared to be sent back] around with you and come back to life. Hell, half the time I wonder if you're not eager to go back to Maryland anyway."
and then they had a discussion that made me really, really dislike Kevin. He accused her of not letting it go for a bit, then he started to accuse her of having hidden Rufus sexually assaulting her. I really had trouble with understanding that conversation; it seemed to come out of nowhere that he was DEMANDING to know if she'd been forced to have sex with him, and that she would kill Rufus if he tried. It just seemed awkward. And yet, Kevin seemed like he was supposed to be a good, heroic character -- he had helped in the underground railroad after all. It left me a bit confused, and felt as forced as the dialogue near the beginning of the book. Maybe that's how it would feel in real life? I'm not sure.
I looked on sparknotes to find where some of these quotes were, and their summary made me feel a bit better about my own interpretation:
Kevin is a progressive, liberal, middle-aged white man who defies convention and the disapproval of his family to marry the black woman he loves. Slavery appalls him. He fights for his ideals in the South by helping slaves escape, even though getting caught might cost him his life. He tries to support Dana and help her contend with the difficulties she encounters in the South. However, Kevin is an imperfect man. He does not see that he tends to dominate Dana and often disregards her wishes. He is jealous of Rufus, he tries to force Dana to become his secretary, and he lashes out at her when he has a hard time fitting in back at home. Kevin also has a blind spot where the slaves on the Weylin plantation are concerned. He does not understand that even the most placid, least violent forms of slavery are shocking and degrading. He thinks about the big picture and as a result wants to affect all of history, rather than struggle to improve the lives of those around him. He does not see many of the slaves as Dana sees them: as individuals with their own histories and lives.
I'm curious to hear what others (/u/riteilu?) think!