Customer Reviews

The Kitchen House: A Novel

5 star:		(233)
4 star:		(77)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

"The Kitchen House"

After reading "The Kitchen House" I believe that Kathleen Grissom has crafted an absorbing historical tale that probes the darkest edges in this villainous period of American history by employing an extraordinary and distinctive approach. The author cleverly created two contrasting protagonists, Lavinia, the white girl-to-woman, and Belle, the mixed race slave, to move the story alternately from their separate perspectives; Ms. Grissom guides the reader into the deepest reaches of the soul of each character in the book. For me, at least, this memorable cast of characters, from the good ones to the downright evil ones seems to have established permanent residence in my thoughts. While I agree with M. Jacobsen's comment that Belle's chapters could have been longer (I really loved Belle), I don't believe her role to be less significant than Lavinia's. Lavinia, as a white person observes and shares the slave experience from within. This approach is unique, I think. At least, I don't recall encountering the technique in literature, and I found it extremely compelling.

The actual historical events of the period are less prominent than the actions, emotions and motivations of the people who live on either side of the implied, but not to be violated, boundary between the races. I think that the complicated relationships between Lavinia and Belle, Mama, and many of the other characters, allow the reader to discover tiny, but significant, cracks in this boundary through which the plot races along from crisis to crisis and then to the shocking, yet fitting conclusion.

Ms. Grissom obviously conducted exhaustive research into the time period of the book. As a born Canadian, she must be commended. In the book she succeeded in describing the customs, mores and artifacts of this period in a clear and entertaining way. Often, when reading a novel, I tend to skip over descriptive passages so as not to interrupt plot progression and character development. In "The Kitchen House" I found the descriptions and details charming and sometimes melancholy. Who can forget, now, what a vasculum is, or forget the image of little slave children pulling the cords of the ceiling fans in the dining rooms to cool their masters on stifling summer days?

I enjoyed reading this book so much that I bought several extra copies to share a very inspiring and special reading experience with special people. So, Ms. Grissom - will we be finding out what happens to the "Kitchen House" characters in the next generation? Kathleen Grissom's powerful first novel leaves me eagerly awaiting the next, whether or not it is a sequel or a totally new historical novel from a totally different perspective.

Reviewer,
D. Eckert

I had a hard time deciding exactly how to rate this one, and I'll explain why. "The Kitchen House" by Kathleen Grissom is a novel I was sure I'd love when I read the blurb. I'm a history buff, particularly fond of the South, and an avid reader.

First, the parts I loved. The characters are well-drawn and easy to love or hate, depending on which one we're talking about. Most points are plausible, which shows the author must have done a great deal of research. The plot gave this book a storyline I absolutely enjoyed; as I fell asleep each night during the time I read this, I'd wondered about the characters and what would happen to them.

Now onto the parts I wasn't so fond of. The main problem I had with the prose was that so many large sections were told in a summerized fashion, as opposed to being written in a way that gave the reader more connection with the story, a great example of the wrong side of the 'show vs tell' writers are warned against. Some historical facts were recited in a teacherly manner instead of being better incorporated into the story. There were A LOT of redundant areas where the reader repeated the exact same thing over and over and over, which greatly detracted from the story and made me wonder if word count had been an issue. One example would be when the parentage of a particular person was discussed between different characters in one chapter at least four times using nearly the same wording. There were a few historical points that I think were a bit off, and the accents could have more accurate. For example, the main character Lavinia is straight off the ship from Ireland but there is only one mention of her accent and it never shows through in her dialogue.

I was enthralled with the story, but the prose could have been more polished.

Kitchen House presents an unvarnished tale of life in the antebellum south. While grounded in carefully researched historical fact, the exquisitely developed characters take on a life that envelopes the reader. The author so cleverly evokes the story's time and place, that the reader virtually feels present as the the tale unfolds. The story itself compels one to continue reading and yet not want the story to end. It is impossible not to be permanently touched by this novel. I could not put this book down! Encore!

At 17, I realize that I'm not the greatest authority on literary merit. My life has been short, relatively unlived, inexperienced. I spend most of my time living through the lives of fictional people on someone else's pages and I feel the uneven weight of the book in my hands. I read The Kitchen House and couldn't feel a thing that wasn't being felt by Belle and Lavinia. I saw only them, their world. And when it was all over, I felt that I might cry because the last page had turned but suddenly, it seemed like the room wasn't empty.
As I read, all of them- Belle, Ben, Marshall even- had peeled their backs off the words to hover around me. And they haunted me for days, followed me everywhere. This novel is the kind that pulls in one as one person before spitting you back out wholly other. Maybe it's the raw, unabashed emotion, the unhindered heartache that claws into you, snags on that darkest part of you and intensifies it. Makes you regret your sins and rejoice in your loves. Either way, I felt what I've rarely felt- that my short life may have been slightly changed by The Kitchen House- or, really, the lives of those inside of it. That I had moved one inch, however miniscule, closer to that part of my bloodline, my heritage, which had remained so almost dreamlike in its distance, untouchable.
Belle could be anyone's ancestor, Lavinia could be anyone's history.
Yeah, that's it. I felt, I think, for the first time, really connected to a past I had only ever read about in text books. In 2 days, this novel revealed more than 12 years of U.S. History. And made it real, true, beautifully horrible in every ghostly- or ghastly- way.
There really aren't words, though I've used a considerable amount, to describe the swell of emotions you feel while reading this. But I suppose that's where the beauty lies. In the ability of words on white pages to create from their inhumanity that rawest spectrum of feelings which mark us as truly human.
The "O" of OSG, Olivia

Length:: 3:11 Mins

Our book club read THE KITCHEN HOUSE in July 2011 and rated it an A-. This video is a preview of our podcast discussion/review with Kathleen Grissom as our SPECIAL GUEST, recorded Saturday, July 30, 2011. For the full episode please visit The Reading Cove's site!

The reviews I read prior to picking this up were great and, as a fan of historical fiction, I thought I was getting ready to read a real winner. I usually enjoy stories of the south and enjoy southern writers of all types so I was eager to get started.

Set on a tobacco plantation right after the Revolutionary War, the main character is a young Irish girl (age 7) who's parents died on the Atlantic crossing. She becomes the slave/servant of the plantation owner and lives among the slaves but has one of the higher positions in the kitchen house. The slave stories and the stories of the plantation family are interwoven throughout the novel and much about life during that time period is explored.

I know I am going against the popular opinion on this one, but I didn't like it at all. I often read books that are less than cheerful such as novels about the Holocaust, so I don't have a dislike of "downer" books, but this one was just too much. Every page is filled with one tragedy after the next. Rape, incest, beatings, mental illness, physical and mental abuse fill page after page after page. I know life as a slave had to be horrible and want to be clear that my expectation was not happy, grateful slaves, but the constant tragedies in the family of the master went on and on as well. If something awful could happen in this family, it did. I found myself hating to pick the book up and actually felt out-of-sorts emotionally when not reading - the negativity just bled over into my everyday life. The novel felt like a soap opera jam packed with disaster after disaster.

I also had some difficulty with the writing and there were believability issues so those aspects didn't save the novel for me either.

I wanted to like it; hoped to like it; and tried to like it (I really did). This one wasn't my cup of tea.

I choose this book as it was a new release for the Kindle. The review sounded good and I always like to give debut authors a try. Loving my new Kindle and this book made it easy to read. I simply could not put it down. I was so deeply drawn to the characters that I felt myself feeling so much emotion. You can't help but feel happiness, sadness, revenge and yes cry with some of the characters. It really shows the amount of extensive reseach Ms.Grissom has done and transposed it into a beautiful story. Give yourself a treat and welcome Ms.Grissom by reading this delight. Can't wait to see what she brings us next.

I love historical fiction; I really do. I was excited to read this book, but it was drudgery from beginning to end. I am still puzzled that so many people gave this book a five-star rating. This book is terribly written, with flat, undeveloped characters, absurd plot twists (rape! murder! lies! intrigue! incest! child abuse!), and unbelievable resolutions which feel like another vehicle to speed along the very predictable, very drawn out, but paper-thin plot. This novel is supposedly set in the late 18th century, but there is little in the book that shapes the time or place; some of the dialogue feels like it's right out of a soap opera. Too much happens; too much of it is negative; there are too many tragedies. None of the politics of the time (after all, the Revolutionary War just occurred) are mentioned. There is little that moors the reader in the historical period of the time. And, oh, yes, let's not forget the sloppy ending, which is supposed to resonate with bittersweet optimism but actually had me laughing out loud at its absurdity. I skimmed the last 30 or so pages because I just wanted to have this book done with. A huge thumbs down from me.

I have decided to rate this book on entertainment value. I listened to this book during commutes to and from work. For the first 2/3 of the book or so, I found myself riveted by the interesting angle of the plot; in the last 1/3, I had gotten into the soap opera-ish twists and turns.

It's funny how some have commented on the lack of mention of historical events of the time like the American Revolution. As though an 8-year old Irish immigrant and isolated slaves in Virginia had access to CNN. Exactly which part of the war would have affected them? Valley Forge? The Crossing of the Delaware? Bunker Hill? Just a hop, skip, and a jump from rural Virginia. Or perhaps they would have been reading about them in the newspaper that was delivered daily to their homes? (We all know how literate indentured servants and slaves were.)

Some of the characters were ones you've read about before or seen in movies. I wish they had been fleshed out a bit more, particularly Rankin, who mirrored every overseer I'd ever read about or seen in film. I would also like to have seen a white woman of the period who was not so delicate. Let's face it, many had to be tough to live through childbirth and the harshness of life during those days. Couldn't Lavinia have toughened up a bit over the years?

It's very true, and I noted this as I listened to the book, how much of the story was "told" not "shown". I didn't mind this much although I sort of felt that the end was rushed because of there being a bit too much summary.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed my commute for several days because I was engrossed in this story and would recommend the book to anyone based on the uniqueness of the the basic story line.

American historical fiction can be tough. Let's face it, 233 years isn't very much to draw from. So historical fiction set in America is usually lumped in the Western genre or tends to romanticize the Civil War.

Author Kathleen Grissom, though, chose to set her novel entitled The Kitchen House on a small Virginia tobacco plantation in years 1791 through 1810, which we found unique and intriguing. The story is told from the point of view of two women: Lavinia, an Irish indentured servant girl, and Belle, the mulatto daughter of the plantation owner.

Grissom opens the novel with a terrifying prologue, then skips back ten years to recount the events that led up to the prologue. She tells the story via Lavinia and Belle in alternating chapters. I enjoyed this technique for the most part, although I soon became keenly aware that Belle's chapters were significantly shorter than Lavinia's chapters - and for no discernible reason, which gave a slightly one-sided feel to the novel.

The great crux of the story is one giant family secret that leads to assumptions which leads to tragedy. While that is a fantastic premise, the principal characters had 384 pages and countless opportunities to correct the wrong assumptions. Of course they didn't and that's what furthered the plot, but this became slightly frustrating after 200 pages or so.

Aside from that, Grissom clearly excels at characterization. Motivations are key to understanding characters in this novel and the development of each character pushes the plot along at a nice pace.

Don't look for national politics or events of the time to play a large role in this story. Rather, it is a microcosm of a society that justifies slavery of fellow human beings and the unavoidable fall-out that must follow.

If you enjoy this time period in American historical fiction, I'd certainly recommend reading this novel.