The Kitchen House (Audiobook)

Title: The Kitchen House (Audiobook)

Author: Kathleen Grissom

Read by: Orlagh Cassidy, Bahni Turpin

Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks (2010)

Genre(s): Fiction, Historical Fiction, Realistic Fiction

Length: 12 hours and 11 minutes

Synopsis: Lavinia was only seven when her family left Ireland aboard a small ship bound for America, a voyage that left her parents dead and Lavinia too sick and weak to protest when she is taken into indentured servitude in payment for her family's passage.  She is taken to the vast plantation house of Captain Pyke and left in the care of Belle, a kitchen slave and Pyke's own illegitimate daughter.  Belle and the other domestic slaves accept Lavinia as a member of their own family, and Lavinia grows to love them, standing with them even as the fortunes of the family in the plantation house begin to fail.

My Rating: 4 Stars

 
My Opinion: This is a beautifully researched, well written, and delightfully performed book.  The characters are brought to life by performers who make them distinctive without drawing them as them caricatures.  In her youth, the story follows Lavinia closely and gives  the reader a delightfully innocent view of plantation politics, but the narrative grows grimmer as Lavinia grows up and leaves behind the trivialities of childhood.  The detail in this historical imagining is fantastic.  From fashion and food to architecture and politics, Grissom has clearly done her homework.  My only complaint is that there really seems to be too much story for a single book.  Lavinia's life is divided into multiple parts as she grows older and her circumstances change, which of course is perfectly reasonable.  However, there is not a consistent driving arc of plot throughout the book, which makes sense since the lives of normal people seldom follow satisfyingly dramatic plot lines.  Though the forward momentum provided by tensions between characters is generally enough to keep the story moving, sometimes this falters and leaves the story somewhat stagnant.  Nonetheless, it's a good performance of a good text, making for an engaging overall experience.