Today on NPR’s Morning Edition, Lynn Neary spoke with first-time novelist Ayana Mathis and Oprah Winfrey on the next selection for Oprah’s up-dated version of her hugely popular book club. Oprah explained why Mathis’s book, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie caught her attention. She said, “They say you can’t tell a book by a cover,” she says, “but I just saw the title, Twelve Tribes of Hattie. My grandmother’s name was Hattie Mae Lee … and so I picked it up because of the title, and opened to the first page..I thought, let me get in here, see if I know these people, and in five pages, I did.” The book follows the lives of Hattie and her family into the next generation as result of their move North. Hattie was part of the “great migration” that brought many southern black families to northern cities in search of prosperity and the good life. The book is already experiencing the “Oprah bump”–the swell of sales that occurs when a book is selected by Winfrey.
Barbara L.
