Customer Reviews

Soul Kitchen: A Novel

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Well, I'm a longtime fan of all of Brite's work have been eagerly awaiting Soul Kitchen since I first saw the preorder page here on Amazon. By a fortunate accident, I managed to get my copy of Soul Kitchen several days early (not that I'm complaining), so yay I get to be one of the first to review it here.

First of all, the protagonists Rickey and G-man and are as lovable as ever and it's their sweet, subtle relationship that keeps me going back for more. Brite never fails to deliver with wonderful interaction between them that can go from making me cry to going all warm and fuzzy (multiples times with the same book, in some cases) with these two. Soul Kitchen delivers on that mark.

I also liked the aspect of racism and homophobia and the way that they are viewed from both sides. All of her characters offer diverse insights and the book makes you think about your own stance on certain issues from time to time, or at least it made me think. But don't worry, it's not preachy by any means. The "have gays suffered the same way black have" issue is still one I'm not 100% sure how I feel about. It's new territory for a Brite novel, so congrats on pushing forward rather than backtracking old ground PBZ. =)

The plot was good, the new crooked villain was not quite as interesting as Prime's but not as annoying as Liquor's. I've read before that people think her villains often lack luster, and being a big villain fan I should probably care, but overly intruiging bad guys would most likely take away from the heart of the series, so I'm not complaining.

There was the obligatory "is there going to be any cheating going down" factor that appears throughout the series (when I speak of the series, FYI, I'm including TVOX and the stories in TDYK), which always makes me uneasy. It's good that she can write so convincingly that I actually deeply care whether or not fictional men practice fidelity or not, but still it gets a little tired. I hate it when characters cheat and even the slightest possiblity of it occuring puts me on edge. ><

Though I loved this book and I love the entire Liquor continuity, the reason that I knocked the rating down to a 4 was largely in part to all of the recapping. I understand that a lot of people may be new to the series and reading it out of sequence, but it seems like there's recapping of something that happened in one of the other books (and at least once that I counted that happened in TDYK) at least once per chapter. For the avid Liquor reader, it gets repetitive kinda quickly.

As per the food aspect of the book, I must confess I'm completely ignorant of 90% of ANYTHING having to do with the food mentioned in the series. I kind of feel like a kid watching a grown up movie. I can really love it and enjoy it, but a lot of stuff goes right over my head and I don't "appreciate" it the way that a knowledgable person would. In Soul Kitchen though it talked about a lot of new concepty food and stuff that was really fascinating, and I'm sure anyone would get a kick out of it regardless of prior cuisine experience.

Anyways, on the whole, this book is an excellent addition to the series and I eagerly await D.U.C.K and Dead Shrimp Blues. . . Just with a little less summarizing next time.

Poppy Z. Brite, Soul Kitchen (Three Rivers Press, 2006)

The Rickey and G-Man series, now in its third or fourth book (depending on to whom one talks; there has been debate for what seems like ages about whether The Value of X can be soncidered the first book in the series or not), continues on apace, and as fine as it's ever been. Liquor has now been a going concern for three years, and is still on top of the world, despite what seem to be neverending problems, both personal and professional, for the pair (Rickey more so than G-Man, natch). This time, the problems start when Milford Goodman, an ex-con framed for the murder of his last employer, comes in looking for a job. Rickey remembers him as a brilliant chef, and hires him-- much to the chagrin of a number of prominent townsfolk. When one of Rickey's regulars approaches him with the idea of consulting for a restaurant the regular is planning on opening on a floating casino, Rickey nominates Milford as the head chef. All well and good, until they find out one of the place's silent partners is connected to Milford's last employer's death.

None of the above is a spoiler, by the way, though it takes you about halfway through the novel; it's no more than you'll find out reading the back cover copy. Brite has once again given us a fun plot, some wonderful new characters, subplots to complicate things, and a smash-bang climax that will have you alternately laughing and cowering, but what she really has offered us in this series, what really makes it worth reading, is a stable of complex, well-drawn characters going about their daily business (what Maureen Corrigan calls a "work novel," at least in part). And that daily business is very, very interesting. If you like food-- and who doesn't?-- you're going to get a kick out of these books. Brite's descriptions of the food itself are little short of orgasmic, and you may even find yourself wanting to try stuff you never thought you'd like. (With me, it was the foie gras-stuffed burger from Prime.) When you combine food writing this good with characters this real, you can't not have a winner on your hands. ****

The LIQUOR books continue and SOUL KITCHEN is a truly fine edition to the series. I completely admit to being hooked on the lives of Rickey and G-man due to the hard-won way their author, Poppy Z. Brite, brings them to life. There is a low-country, unhurried and vernacular-perfect yet completely contemporary elegance to her prose that only comes from intense hard work and much agonizing over each sentence. While many authors are content to distractedly bang out serial novels once an acceptable groove has been found, Brite is one of the rare ones that really believes her creations deserve no less than the best. The attention to detail and the fact her characters live on in my head long after I close the cover means, at least to this reader, that she's one of the rare ones who truly can write about anything she darn well pleases and that will certainly please anyone that appreciates a good read.

In SOUL KITCHEN, I was pleased and proud to find that Rickey and G-man have not only had further adventures in the delightfully well-told restaurant world but also have grown emotionally. They've changed in that way many real people wish they could, by facing personal and professional challenges head-on and rising to them, if not rising over them. There are recaps of some of the events in earlier books and I find them to be like looking at favorite pictures again. They help to tie the lives of the characters together in a way that some other authors burden the reader with doing. By including relevant reminders of which chef's knives are on the mantelpieces (so to speak,) it helps to know where things might go in SOUL KITCHEN.

And as wonderfully usual in this series, the details of the restaurant world and the food in and around it are very well done, especially since they describe one of the most unusually diverse eating cities known to exist.

Brite likely wrote most of this book before the devastation of Hurricane Katrina hit her hometown of New Orleans. It is tempting to link the strength of her characters to her own internal strength and note, in one particular way, that the rest of this series is likely to be even better than the current installment. Especially as it will most likely force Rickey and G-man to deal with a major natural and national disaster, one of the most emotionally demanding things anyone can face on or off the page.

I've enjoyed all the books in this series and have to say "Soul Kitchen" does not disappoint. Sure, I can see why some might find it "familiar territory" after all, this is the third novel in the series, of course the characters are becoming more familiar. That's what I like about reading a series! You get to know people, watch them grow, they become friends, which is certainly the case with Rickey and G-Man.

It's been a great experience, watching these two mature from friends to lovers to partners, from dishwashers to line cooks to owners of their own restaurant. I've really enjoyed the ride and hope it continues for a long time to come.

I don't follow Ms.Brite's blog or know much about her personally but I am curious, after reading "Soul Kitchen" if she is a fan of Stephen King? There was something reminiscent of his work in this story, maybe it was Milford, who reminded me a lot of a King character, a strong, moral black man, struggling in world dominated by whites, like "It"'s Mike Hanlon or "The Green Mile"'s John Coffey. What really snagged my memory was Milford's description of Rickey. He says dealing with Rickey is "like biting on a piece of tinfoil", which is exactly how one of King's character's describes "The Stand"'s Larry Underwood.

I don't mean to draw these comparisons to King as a negative. I just love both of their books and got a little thrill when I recognized something of one in the other.

Looking forward to more adventures with Rickey and G...

A famous playwright I once knew revealed that his boilerplate comment when meeting the cast, playwright or crew of a show he destested was a boisterous "There's nothing like it in this town!" I was reminded of his comment -- but in a MUCH more positive way! -- when reading SOUL KITCHEN, the sequel to LIQUOR and PRIME, continuing the story of New Orleans chefs Rickey and G-Man.

What's so wonderfully unique about what Brite does in these novels (and with even greater skill here) is that she's weaving together (at least) four different kinds of stories, each unique in its own way: a back-of-house exposé, a satire on food fads, a nuanced mature romance, and an account of how New Orleanians live beyond puke-till-you-drop Bourbon Street bars and stately-but-doomed Garden District mansions.

Although Anthony Bourdain and various reality TV series have given us a hyped-up version of what goes on in restaurant kitchens (apparently it's not all witty Julia Child-esque banter, as I had assumed), Brite shows us the ordinary aches and pains, the daily grind of turning out those magical dishes. She is equally on her game when she skewers the pretensions of over-hyped chefs who care more about their own egos than giving customers a satisfying experience. There's a scene in one of these trendy shiny dives that had me laughing out loud -- I'll never look at a muffaletta the same way again. And gumbo, that most venerated of New Orleans comfort foods, makes several surprising appearances.

In showing us the maturing relationship of Rickey and G-Man, Brite is at her subtlest. What is so compelling about these two? It's that they are the kind of ordinary gay couple we so rarely see in books or the media. Not flamboyant or over-sexed or romantically tormented, they are two people doing their best to love each other in a difficult world. Here they face new challenges, both professional and personal, and do the hard work of continuing to love each other and build a common life.

And yet, that is not the greatest gift of this book. Most poignantly, she lays before us the ordinary life of Pre-Katrina New Orleans. (The first draft was finished the night before the storm.) I was reminded of the early volumes of TALES OF THE CITY, telling of the lives of Pre-AIDS San Francisco, its residents blessedly unaware of the disaster to come. So many of the places where this book is set suffered tremendous damage from the storm and the subsequent failure of the levees (the latter, we must not forget, an engineering castrophe, not a natural disaster; but I digress). Like John Kennedy Toole (who is explicitly invoked in the book), Brite is committed to setting before us the lives of ordinary New Orleanians who eat, drink, go to work, and make love in this most beloved of cities. If you want to know what happens beyond the French Quarter and the Garden District (in the 80% of the city that flooded), I can think of no better guide than this book. She shows us why, to echo, Tom Piazza, New Orleans matters.

Even as she celebrates the ordinary lives and unique pleasures of New Orleanians, Brite is not blind to the elemental corruption in the social structure of the city, a rot spawned from the conflicts of race and class. In showing the darkness behind the city's glittering facades, she reveals a keen (and perhaps surprising) moral sensibility. This too, is New Orleans, and we do the city no favors in ignoring that truth. If the soul of New Orleans is in its kitchens, as many have said, Doc Brite is its spiritual director.

Some people classify Poppy Z. Brite's recent novels as mysteries, but that's not exactly right. Though her "Liquor" books (Soul Kitchen is the third installment) contain crimes, the stories aren't driven by a need to solve crimes or bring perpetrators to justice. The wrongdoings prevalent in these books are of the type that seems to be part and parcel of doing business and living in the Crescent City. Grift, money laundering, blackmail, political influence-for-sale, protection, gambling and the like.

In Soul Kitchen, protagonists Ricky and G-man are riding the wave of accomplishment generated by their liquor-themed restaurant. Liquor is one of New Orleans' success stories in a city where eating establishments tend to erupt like flames and flicker out just as quickly. The life-long friends are, perhaps, resting on their laurels and soon learn how fast a restaurant's reputation can be dulled or tarnished. A simple chain of events imperils their prestige.

Ricky wrenches his back wrestling with a fifty-pound bag of oysters, an injury that informs the rest of the novel. Since he and G-man have no health insurance, he relies on the medical advice of a regular customer and business associate who finds it to his advantage to get Ricky hooked on Vicodin. Pain, lack of sleep and his increasing dependence upon the drugs interferes with his relationship with G-man and leads him to badger Tanker, the restaurant's desert specialist, into quitting. Pride keeps teh men from seeking reconciliation, even after Ricky and G-man discover that no one else knows how to recreate some of their signature deserts.

Ricky becomes an absentee partner when he agrees to another consulting job, this time helping set up a "destination" restaurant at a casino on Lake Pontchartrain. He and G-man hire Milford Goodman, fresh out of a lengthy stint in prison after being wrongly convicted for the murder of his previous (white female) restaurant partner, to fill in the gaps at Liquor. No one else wants anything to do with Milford, and Ricky and G-man take some heat for hiring him.

Milford was a highly esteemed chef before his incarceration, so Ricky enlists his help in coming up with the theme for the casino restaurant. They decide on Soul Kitchen, which will serve ethnic home-style cooking from around the world. Ricky isn't particularly fond of his business partners in this endeavor, but he and Ricky are trying to save up enough money to buy out their original Liquor financier, Lenny, who still owns twenty-five percent of the restaurant. Ricky's side job leads to an explosive, unexpected confrontation and, in the aftermath, it's unlikely that Ricky will be eager to hire himself out as a consultant any time soon.

The power and strength of this series of books comes from the long-term relationship between Ricky and G-man. Their faithfulness and loyalty is occasionally tested, almost to the breaking point, but readers believe in them and in their future together. They don't spend a lot of time analyzing their relationship, nor do they devote much energy defending it to people who are less than supportive of their lifestyle. They just do like most other people: continue to stay together and support each other day after day after day.

Brite knows the New Orleans tradition and the restaurant business. Her husband is a chef and she frequently posts on her blog about some of the exotic meals she has in that city. She knows that, outside of work, chefs rarely cook gourmet meals for themselves or for their loved ones. She knows how a kitchen works, and the ways in which it can go badly wrong. She understands the pompous self-importance of some of the industry's auteurs. And she also understands chronic pain and the allure of certain drugs to hold it at bay.

Since Katrina, Brite has become one of New Orleans' strongest advocates, writing at length about the city's recover on her blog and penning opinion pieces for the local newspaper and for national publications. Soul Kitchen was completed the night before the storm struck the city. The next installment, Dead Shrimp Blues, will reportedly deal, in part, with the hurricane and its aftermath.

Soul Kitchen is the funniest, most touching and scariest (Polonius eek) book I've read this year.
the character are the most three dimensional people in any series out there. If you've spent any time in New Orleans, you've met these people.
The plot and subplots are wound together so naturally with the dialog that you feel like you're watching it all happen.

I'm afraid this is probably going to be the last book in the series that can be so light of heart. Two Lower Ninth Ward boys, their Lakeview friend and backer, friends and family aren't going to be able to produce much humor in post-Katrina New Orleans. As dark as the next book in the series has to be, I still look forward to reading it.
Call me sentimental but I suspect reading it will help the healing process for those of us who lost everything last summer.

I have to admit. I'm new to Poppy. Having filled my teenage mind back in high school with the likes of King, Rice, and Koontz, I was hesitant to start at the beginning of Brite's collection back in the day when she was writing horror. Like Poppy, I'm past that and prefer something these days with a little more substance. Having come across her Live Journal, I soon learned that her story of John Rickey and Gary "G-man" Stubbs was the direction to take. I started with Soul Kitchen, and right from the start I was not disappointed.

I've visited New Orleans only twice in my life. Mardi Gras, 1995, and that story is a book in itself that many wayward (and stupid) tourists have experienced. I was reluctant to ever give New Orleans a good name while reliving my tale over dinner or at a local bar with friends. How unfair! I went back to New Orleans two years after that during the non-tourist season and was ashamed at all the eccentric and brilliant eateries and places I'd missed out on before. NOLA soon earned the place dear to my heart that it so much deserved like all the other Southern spots I adore.

Since that was ten years ago and the face of New Orleans has changed quite a bit since then, I cherished the taste and flare that Poppy Z treats us to deep in the food culture that brings New Orleans close to our heart (and our stomachs). The adventures of her two Chefs (who are also lovers) deep in the restaurant business definitely offers a lot more than any TV soap opera could provide. I couldn't get enough! The politics and mayhem that surround the kitchen, and the city itself, kept the pages turning.

Brite finished Soul Kitchen on the eve of Katrina, while also suffering from severe back pain. After finishing the last page of this book, my heart was right there with her. I immediately went back to 2005 and read entries into her journal. I wanted to know if what I was feeling was the same. She writes..."I get hung up on silly little things like whether I should write out the menu for the story's climactic dinner or just come up with the courses as I go along. (If it was Rickey and G-man cooking, I'd certainly make up the menu in advance... This scene needs to be really funny, and I just don't feel funny. I feel sore and mad and cotton-headed. I twist in my chair and hear the painkillers calling my name."

Each time a writer finishes a piece of work so brilliant and so personal, I believe a piece of them dies a little. They lose a part of themselves that's been kept bottled up inside, expelling the pain onto paper but twisting it into the words their readers embrace. Brite's recipe is no different. Luckily, she has cooked up several more endearing books in this series.

I'll definitely be having second helpings!

Reading "Soul Kitchen," the third book in Poppy Z. Brite's series about chefs John Rickey and Gary "G-Man" Stubbs, is a little like having old friends over for a potluck. You know that having them over is going to be a treat, but you're not sure what they're going to bring. This time, the dish is a hefty serving of New Orleans racial and social politics dished up with a garnish of conjugal discord.

The initial scene, an argument that segues into a murder, lays the groundwork for the novel's chosen crime: the murder of a white restaurant owner by her black head chef, a man named Milford Goodman. From there it jumps ahead, with Rickey and G-man still running their restaurant, Liquor, after 3 years of success. A series of events, among them Rickey suffering a back injury that aggravates his already fierce temper, leads to one of Liquor's chefs quitting and Milford--an old friend of Rickey's, and newly released from jail--being hired to take his place. And Milford does more than take his place; he's a culinary genius who can recreate any dish he's tasted once.

Naturally, talent like Milford's doesn't go unnoticed. Rickey's doctor, a man named Lamotte who gives Rickey a seemingly endless supply of Vicodin, convinces him to join a business venture: a restaurant on a gambling riverboat called Soul Kitchen, which will offer "home cooking" from a variety of cuisines. While Rickey manages to do Milford yet another favor and have him hired as the chef, there's just one problem: Clancy Fairbairn, the new restaurant's bankroller with a dark reputation, is the man who Milford believes murdered his former employer. And Fairbairn has every reason to make sure Milford keeps quiet.

Suffice to say there's more to the story than the suspense. Brite gets in a solid dig at the homophobic atmosphere in New Orleans in a conflict between Milford and his sister; nor does she neglect the racism that pervades the city's class structure, which is taken as a matter of bitter fact by the staff of Liquor. And there's the food, not just that prepared by Liquor and Soul Kitchen, but also by Polonius, an upscale eatery run by a Dutch chef whose creations get more ludicrous and less appetizing with every mentioned course. (The fish sandwich gelee is a concept that one wishes had no basis in reality.) And lastly, Rickey's back injury and subsequent Vicodin addiction leave G-man vulnerable to the advances of a new staff member at Liquor. It may sound like a mess rather than a plot; however, like most stews, "Soul Kitchen"'s story is a lot more appetizing when it's consumed.

The ending of "Soul Kitchen" is bittersweet, as Rickey ends up swallowing his last Vicodin and quite a bit of his pride. But it's true to the characters, and wraps up with a fond look at Rickey and G-man. I would love to see another novel in this series; while the description of the food drives me to try to recreate it, my enjoyment of the characters is what keeps me coming back to these books.

Soul Kitchen is the third book in Brite's 'Liquor' series ( or the fourth if you count The Value of X!)It could be read on it's own if you haven't read the others, but I would recommend starting at the beginning.

Like the others, it is set in a pre-Katrina New Orleans and involves the two chefs Rickey and G-man. The chefs run a successful restaurant called Liquor, and in this novel they are approached by ex-con Milford Goodman (recently proved innocent) for employment.

Goodman starts off in the kitchen at Liquor, but his talent is clear so when an opportunity comes up Rickey puts him forward as head chef at a new venture 'Soul Kitchen' - a restaurant on a casino boat.

It turns out that one of the restaurant backers has an axe to grind with Goodman, and Rickey finds himself in the middle. Throw in a few problems with prescription drugs and another bloke trying to steal G-man away and it's a recipe for disaster (pardon the pun.)

If you have read PZB's other Liquor novels, expect more of the same. If you're more used to the horror, you'll find this really different but equally as good, if not better. It's a lot like a fictional version of Bourdain's 'Kitchen Confidential' but with a good plot.

I wish she'd write faster, I can't wait for the next installment.