The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

Just as I can only take so much Holocaust historical fiction, I can only take so much antebellum South  and slavery books. But again, it had been a while, and again, there was that book at Costco. (Costco tables make me pine for the book stores of old. I hope those stores come back. I miss them.)

So I read The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, historical fiction of the antebellum south. You can find a good plot summary somewhere that would do it better justice than I could.

Plot: Good. Characters: good. I always like it when authors can tell the story from different character's points of view. Loved the portray of how the lives of the landowners and the lives of the slaves/servants intertwined. I thought the end was a little rushed, but there has to be an end somehow. For a first work of Grissom, pretty good.

Violence. There's violence. Skipped it. If it bothers you that there's violence and you can't skip it, pass on this book.

I'd actually like to read it with a book group and talk about some of the characters. I found Marshall incredibly pathetic, both "pathetic" meaning full of pathos and "pathetic" meaning despise-able. And there's conflict to discuss for sure, for sure.

Would I recommend it? Maybe. If the topic interests you, yes. I wouldn't put it on a "must read classics" list (like Book Thief, like These is My Words, and like Guernsey), but worth the time if you are interested or are looking for a decent read for this summer.