Ayana Mathis’s 2012 novel The Twelve Tribes of Hattie follows the lives of the Shepherds, a black family struggling to succeed in Philadelphia between 1925 and 1980. At the center of the family is their inscrutable matriarch, Hattie, who remains an enigma to her children even as they grow into adulthood. With only two exceptions, each of the book’s chapters delves into the mind of one of Hattie’s children (and one granddaughter) over a span of several decades, and their collective perspectives bring into focus Hattie’s hopes and sufferings. The novel was an Oprah Book Club selection in 2012.

Plot Summary

In the first chapter, set in 1925, Hattie remembers fleeing Georgia at the age of 15 after white men killed her father and commandeered his prosperous blacksmith shop. Two years after settling in Philadelphia, Hattie marries August Shepherd. She gives birth to twins she names Philadelphia and Jubilee, but they die of pneumonia before their first birthday. The loss of her twins extinguishes Hattie’s belief in the North as the “Promised Land” for African Americans. Embittered by the harshness of her life, Hattie dispenses with hope and raises her subsequent children without tenderness or mercy.

In 1948 Floyd, Hattie’s 22-year-old son, tours the South, playing his trumpet. An attractive man, Floyd easily wins women’s hearts, but away from home his long-suppressed desire for men persistently surfaces. During his stop in one small town, Floyd is seduced by Lafayette, a charming young man with whom Floyd imagines a long-term relationship. Lafayette appears at the club where Floyd is playing, and the crowd turns on him because he is a known homosexual. Floyd does not defend his lover but continues to play, filled with self-loathing.

When he was nine, Hattie’s son Six fell into scalding bathwater. The accident left him frail and permanently scarred. At 13, the “Word” of God surges through Six while in church, and during the “fit,” he preaches a powerful sermon. Another fit comes upon him outside of church, driving him to severely beat another boy. To protect him from retribution, Hattie sends Six to a revival meeting in Alabama. He delivers a tent sermon, and as the Word fills him with its power again, he heals a sick woman. The town hails him as a gifted healer, and although dubious, Six accepts the title.

In 1951 Hattie leaves her family to go to Baltimore with her lover, Lawrence, and their daughter, Ruthie, because she can no longer tolerate August’s financial irresponsibility and womanizing. She also expresses concern about Lawrence’s gambling habit, but Lawrence shrugs off her worries. Meanwhile, at the Shepherd’s house, August tries unsuccessfully to feed his seven children supper while reeling from Hattie’s announcement, before she left, that Ruthie is not his. He sends the children to bed and drinks. At 4:00 a.m., Hattie returns to the house with Ruthie, having left Lawrence in Baltimore after he joined fellow gamblers in a card game.

Hattie is 46 in 1954 when she has her last baby, Ella. Because August rarely works anymore, Hattie applies for “the dole” to support her family. Hattie’s sister Pearl lives in Georgia, and her husband is a successful businessman. They have a large house but no children. When Hattie receives Pearl’s letter offering to adopt Ella, she tears it up. Several months later, Hattie concedes that Ella’s life would be better with Pearl and surrenders the baby to her sister.

It is 1968, and Hattie’s daughter Alice is married to a wealthy doctor. Alice lives in a spacious house and has a servant, Eudine, but feels insecure about her own lower-class origins. Although self-doubt overwhelms her, Alice takes pride in caring for her brother, Billups. As children, she and Billups shared a secret they never told anyone: a man named Thomas routinely molested Billups. Convinced that Billups, now in his 20s, is too tormented to work, Alice supports him. She also alerts him whenever she “sees” Thomas around town. One afternoon, Alice stumbles upon Billups embracing Eudine in her kitchen. Billups has secured a job and wants to marry. Stunned, Alice suddenly spies Thomas outside the window and shrieks. Billups gently says it is only Alice’s husband returning from work.

Hattie’s son Franklin is stationed on a beach in Saigon in 1969. He drinks excessively, so while his crew mates plant mines, he serves as the lookout. After nightfall, Franklin convinces himself that a sinister shape in the water is an enemy submarine. Increasingly alarmed that he will die on the beach, Franklin’s thoughts turn to his estranged wife, Sissy. They married two years earlier, but when Franklin started drinking, gambling, and staying out all night, Sissy left him. He joined the military, and now, serving in Vietnam, he has just received Sissy’s letter telling him he is a father. As his crew leaves the beach, a fishing boat detonates a mine and explodes. Franklin vows that if he sees body parts in the water, he will change his ways. He sees nothing and continues drinking.

Bell is 40 in 1975 and dying of tuberculosis in a squalid apartment. She hasn’t seen her family since she moved to the ghetto. When she was a teenager, Bell glimpsed her mother on the street walking with an attractive man. Never before had Bell witnessed Hattie so happy. Indeed, Hattie was always angry and raging at her children. Eight years ago, Bell serendipitously bumped into the man, Lawrence, and began an ill-fated affair with him to spite her mother. Succumbing to her disease, Bell falls into feverish dreams. Hattie, alerted by a mutual friend, rescues her and visits Bell every day at the hospital. During their conversations, Bell realizes her mother loves her after all.

Cassie lives with her young daughter Sala in her parent’s new house. She hears voices that litter her mind with ugly thoughts. The Banshees, as Cassie calls the voices, recently screeched that her mother, Hattie, is poisoning the food. Despite the evil she imagines lurking everywhere, Cassie tries to find the beauty in things. Hattie and August schedule a medical appointment for Cassie, but during the drive, the Banshees urge her to jump from the car. Cassie then runs, but the sight of an injured cat derails her escape, and police officers appear. They escort her to an ambulance.

Two days before Cassie’s hospitalization, Sala arrived home from school to find her mother digging up the lawn in search of roots to counteract the “poison” Hattie put in their food. Cassie has been gone more than a week when Sala attends church with Hattie and August. The preacher delivers a rousing sermon that transfixes Hattie, but Sala senses that her grandmother, like Sala herself, does not believe in God’s mercy. Nevertheless, when the preacher invites congregants to accept Christ as their savior, Sala steps forward, knowing it would please Cassie. Hattie stops Sala, however, refusing to let her surrender herself to “fraudulence.” Resolving to raise Sala differently, Hattie awkwardly embraces her.