From the Touchstone/Simon and Schuster 369 pg. paperback edition:"When a white servant girl violates the order of Plantation Society, she unleashes a tradgedy that exposes the worst and the best in the people she has come to call her family.
Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven -year-old-Lavinia, with no memory of her past, 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 periolously 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."
For a biography of author Kathleen Grissom, in her own words, please click here to go to her site.
We will meet at the Library at its' new and permanent home back at the newly renovated Borough Hall on Tuesday, April 24, 2012, at 7pm to discuss The Kitchen House as the Grand Re-Opening of the Library falls on our normal meeting day in April. (Email reminders for April will include information on the Grand Re-Opening Celebration!)
Lastly, the Library will be closed in Both locations from April 9th through the 22nd during its' move. Books can still be dropped off at the book drop on Avenue C from the 9th until the 22nd.
I was disappointed with this read, it was not what I expected. Very disappointed, I wanted to like this novel but just couldn't. Too melodramatic and at times unrealistic, too contemporary (despite it being historical fiction) 'Gone With The Wind' for my tastes. Too much in one novel about too many people facing nearly every imaginable awful hardship a human can endure at the time it takes place. Emotions are written about but I often couldn't feel them. There was a lack of depth at times. And I felt like so many aspects of the novel were familiar, as if I was seeing things from history, other novels and movies. It was hard at times keeping everything strait. I do not shy away from reads that deal with the issues & horrors of slavery and indentured servants but I didn't care for how this novel told those stories.
ReplyDeleteTonight's chat is going to be very interesting I think!