We won this title from the Reading Agency: http://readinggroups.org./
Most of our reading group agreed that ‘The Kitchen House’ by Kathleen Grissom was a good story and a good read.
The main setting is in the ‘Kitchen House ‘on a cotton plantation in the Southern states of America.
The story features black slavery, but is about multiple types of entrapment that physically, emotionally and mentally enslave most of the white characters and all of those that are black. It illustrates the stark difference between good and evil and exposes an age that had little regard for personal respect, human dignity and sexual choice. An age that was afraid to lose control and was motivated by feudal power to its own enragement.
The main character is Lavinia. She is introduced to the reader as a white, Irish seven year old. A child traumatised by the loss of her parents and by witnessing a slave hanging.
The lot of the Irish in this era isn’t clear. The reading group would have appreciated more information about indentured servitude as Lavinia is the character that we follow throughout the novel.
The owner of the wealthy plantation is called the ‘Captain’. Lavinia is transported to the plantation to work and is put into the kitchen house under the care of two black slaves: Belle and her mother Mama Mae. Belle is a favoured slave as she is the captain’s illegitimate daughter. Throughout the novel Belle and Lavinia’s lives become increasingly more entwined. Both women care for children who are jointly dependent on each of them. Two of their children are conceived by the Captain’s legitimate son Marshal; Belle’s as a result of rape and Lavinia’s within her marriage to Marshal. Both women were forced by circumstance into their pre-marital and marital roles. Both were in love with other men.
Lavinia considers her black family her kin. She struggles in a conservative white world to assert her identity. Members of the reading group found some of the other characters in Lavinias ‘family‘ story came across as stereotypical, and it was difficult for the reader to make them real. Some found the complexity of the relationships hard to follow. However, it was felt that the life of the plantation owner’s wife Miss Martha was more believable and that her descent into drug dependency and insanity served as a dynamic illustration of social entrapment.
Ben, a black slave at the plantation, is Belle’s true love. Lavinia loves and trusts Will Stephens, a white plantation owner. Will is a practising Christian and treats slaves with comparative respect. This makes him the natural enemy of Rankin, the Captain’s overseer. Rankin is the all-time white ‘Bad guy!’
The actions of Ben and Rankin affect the lives of all main characters. Rankin’s credibility with the Captain causes the monstrous side of Marshal to develop. In the early stages of the story, Rankin encourages Waters, a paedophile tutor, in his abuse of the child Marshal. There is no communication beyond formality in the ‘Big Plantation House,’ it’s only in the ‘Kitchen House’ that there is awareness of what is happening.
A dynamic tension of values arises as Ben chooses crime to prevent Rankin’s cruelty to both fellow slaves and Miss Martha’s children. Will Stephens is the only white person who displays integrity and refutes Rankin and his methods of control.
The tension between good and evil continues to escalate and towards the end, similar to how the story starts, Lavinia’s young daughter Elly is a witness to the hanging of innocent Mama Mae. Following this, Elly also loses her father Marshall to an early violent death.
Members of the group agreed we would like to read the sequel as we need to know what happens to the children.
Ann . Clapton reader.
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