This is an absolutely chilling story, by Kathleen Grissom, of generational abuse and slavery with  horrifying consequences. The Kitchen House: A Novel by [Grissom, Kathleen]  ***many spoilers below***

Lavinia is a small Irish girl separated from her brother and sold into indentured servitude in Virginia after her parents die in 1791 on the boat coming to America.  She is housed with the African American slaves on the plantation who become her erstwhile family.  She considers Belle, who works in the kitchen house, to be her mother.  Belle is the daughter of the master and a slave woman, although the white community thinks she is the master’s mistress rather than his daughter.

The book chapters alternate between Lavinia’s voice and Belle’s as they recount one horrific event after the next.  The master’s son is abused by his tutor and his father fails to noice and won’t listen to what his slaves know is  happening.  This son grows up to be a monster, raping Belle (not knowing she is his own half-sister) and thusly fathering her child.  He later marries Lavinia who has no idea of the cruelty and depravity of which he is capable.  She soon finds out.

The story slowly builds in anguish for almost every character in the story.  Evil is so pervasive that it is oppressive for the reader.  As Belle notes,

I don’t see nothing but trouble coming every way I look.

By the time events explode at the end of the story, relief is in sight although it is by no means a happy ending.  The reader is just glad that the suffering is finally over.

Would I recommend the book?  Yes, if you’re prepared for the emotional agony the story contains.  It is certainly powerfully presented and well-crafted.  In the author’s note, she maintains that the book practically wrote itself after she became strangely pulled toward thoughts of what tragedies may have occurred on “Negro Hilll” located near a plantation tavern she and her husband had purchased in Virginia.  And even she found events of the story to be disturbing although all too plausible as she researched this era of history.

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