In 1976, Dana has just turned twenty-six and she and her husband Kevin move into their new home in Los Angeles. Suddenly, while organizing their books, Dana loses consciousness. When she wakes up, she finds herself on the edge of a dense forest and immediately realizes that a small child is drowning in the river next to her. Without hesitation, she jumps into the water and saves the child, but as she emerges, a man on the shore points a gun at her. Despite the danger to her life, she finds herself back in her apartment, soaked to the bone. She has just experienced the most terrifying experience of her life, but little did she know that it would happen to her again and again...
Octavia Butler has said that she partly owes her inspiration to her mother, who worked as a maid her whole life. I remember telling her, "I will never do what you do, it's awful"...
I held her silent, wounded gaze inside me for years until I understood it. I didn't have to leave school at ten, I always had a plate of food and a roof over my head because my mother was willing to do menial jobs and endure humiliation. People like my mother were not weak or afraid, they were heroes. That's what I wanted to show with "Kindred," in a way that the history of black people cannot.