| | |  | Home and Garden | Home » » The Kitchen House | | | | | | | Description: | | When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family.
Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin. Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk. The Kitchen House is a tragic story of page-turning suspense, exploring the meaning of family, where love and loyalty prevail. | | | Product Details: | | | Average Customer Rating:
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Average Customer Review:
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226 of 230 found the following review helpful:
 "The Kitchen House", a Noteworthy New NovelFeb 11, 2010
By D. Eckert
"Grateful Reader"
"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
266 of 287 found the following review helpful:
 Intriguing story, but it had some rough spotsMay 28, 2010
By Tina Hayes
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.
53 of 55 found the following review helpful:
Plantation life in antebellum south unvarnished! An epic novel of life and tragedy in the antebellum southFeb 17, 2010
By Carlene E. Baime
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!
44 of 47 found the following review helpful:
A review.Feb 27, 2010
By Arnold Galvez
"OSG"
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
30 of 31 found the following review helpful:
 This one isn't for meAug 04, 2010
By Holly Kincaid
"Book addict"
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.
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