Tag Archives: The Kitchen House

Bacon Book Club and the Awesomeness of Kathleen Grissom

Posted on March 13, 2012 | 2 Comments

I’ve been a part of a phenomenal book club for a few years now. The girls are fantastic and we’ve chosen some really great reads. We catch up, drink wine, eat food, and candidly discuss our latest pick before voting on the next choice. Then we go right back to catching up, drinking wine, and eating food.

At our last meeting, someone threw out the idea to have a bacon-themed book club the next time we met. Why? I can’t remember. But…does it matter? Because bacon.

We all had the task of showing up with something that contained bacon. Anyone connected to me, knows I have an amazing lack of cooking abilities. So I really tried to be creative. First, I tried to buy a bacon scented candle (for creative ambiance, of course) but shipping was more than the price of the candle. I briefly considered purchasing bacon flavored gum from a sketchy looking website, but even I thought that was going too far. And so, I contributed the only way I knew how: shopping at Target.

Behold the wonder of bacon bits!

My epic contribution.

Thankfully, I’m the only smart-ass in the group who can’t cook. Which means the rest of the spread was a wonderous feast of bacon. Bacon wrapped dates. Bacon stuffed mushroom caps. Bacon dip of all sorts. And to wrap things up, the most amazing dessert in the history of bacon-flavored-desserts. Prepare yourselves, because…you guys? Angie made bacon-flavored-chocolate cupcakes.

This actually happened.

Having already reached a new high on the awesome scale, why stop there? And that’s where Kathleen Grissom comes in.

Remember back when I wrote about The Kitchen House? I loved it so much that I sent my review to the author, Kathleen. I shared that I was also starting my very first novel and asked if she had any advice for a new writer. Here’s the thing. Not only did she comment on my blog post…but she wrote back. She gave me advice and we connected back and forth over email. I felt like I had a new-found direction on writing. And then it got even more awesome. She volunteered to call in to our book club.

Of course, we took her up on the offer. So last night, after eight girls were done shoving their pretty little faces full of bacon-flavored-everything (complete with three choices of bacon bits for extra flavor, I might add), Kathy called in to talk about her debut novel. 

We put my cell on speaker and crowded around to hear her talk about writing. About how she allowed the characters to write themselves. About how the story came to her. It was inspiring to hear how she dove into research, how she connected with each person in her novel and “let them do the talking.”

It made me appreciate her story even more.

If you’re looking for a great read, I highly recommend picking up The Kitchen House. The story is heartbreaking. As an added bonus: you’ll be reading something by an author that cares about her book and her readers. 

And hey, Kathy? We totally owe you some bacon-flavored-chocolate cupcakes.

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Book Report: The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

Posted on January 29, 2012 | 3 Comments

After reading The Hunger Games Trilogy, I thought it would take a while to find a book I couldn’t put down. Surprisingly, I found it just two books later. The Kitchen House is beautifully written novel full of despair, tension, history, and innocent love.

The prologue takes place in 1810. We join Lavinia, desperately running through the woods, her daughter in tow. They arrive on familiar land to find the horrific scene of a body hanging from a tree. We are then brought back 19 years earlier, to the year 1791.

Lavinia is brought over from Ireland as an indentured servant and arrives alone. She is cared for by Belle, joining her and others to work in the kitchen house. Initially Lavinia suffers from memory loss, illness, and a desperate need for compassion. Slowly, she regains her memory, health, and ability to speak again.

Hers is a unique situation I have not read in other books – a white girl with frizzy red hair and freckles, joining slaves in the south to work on a plantation. She wholeheartedly considers those she lives and works with as her adoptive family, and each character lovingly accepts this relationship.

Reality through her eyes is not the only child-like purity in the novel. The master’s daughter, Sally, is portrayed as “a generous and fun-loving child, innocent of all pretense. She insisted on bringing along her dolls and china dishes from the big house and always delighted in sharing them” (page 53). But anguish does not discriminate against race, age, or kindness, and not even Sally is protected from tragedy.

Over time, Lavinia’s skin color provides her with opportunity to study academics and social grace with the master’s sister-in-law and her family up north. Her eventual return home is accompanied by a new set of confusing rules and expectations.

The theme of not having control over one’s own freedom is a constant throughout the novel. In addition to the obvious topic of slavery, comes the expectations when playing the role as a wife, as a mother, a child. Which characters are free to escape their situations, and which are not. Unforgivable abuse, depression, addiction, and the exposure and acceptance of vile hatred imprison many. Others are trapped in a history doomed to repeat itself. Relationships are affected. I felt that those who were able to empathize were the most at peace. These characters, such as Mama, were the guiding lights that provided balance and understanding.

Eventually, we catch up to the scene from the prologue in 1810. A tense ending, not without tribulation and heartache, keeps you turning page after page.

Even after the book is finished and up on the bookshelf, you find yourself drifting back to the kitchen house and the characters in Kathleen Grissom’s amazing debut novel.

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