The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
A novel about a mother's courage, sacrifice and love, set against the volatile history of twentieth century America. When Hattie clambered from a train, her skirt still hemmed with Georgia mud and the dream of Philadelphia sitting round as a marble in her mouth, she couldn't guess that two years later, aged sixteen, she'd be fighting to keep her baby twins alive. Saddled with a husband who will bring her nothing but disappointment, she raises nine children with grit and monumental courage, but no tenderness. She knows the world will not be kind to them and wants to prepare them as best she can. As her sons and daughters buck against their fates, she feels every one of their triumphs and heartbreaks, for they are all bound together.
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Fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd leaves Georgia for Philadelphia in 1923 and a year later loses her newborn twins Philadelphia and Jubilee to pneumonia. Across nine more chapters the novel walks through the rest of her children and a granddaughter, each a separate story across the twentieth century.
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie was written by Ayana Mathis and published in 2012. It was Mathis's debut novel and an Oprah's Book Club 2.0 selection. Mathis later published The Unsettled in 2023.
Yes. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is structured as 12 chapters each focused on one of the matriarch Hattie Shepherd's children. The structure spans 60 years of family history across the Great Migration.
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is 317 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is a standalone novel by Ayana Mathis, not part of a series.
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
