Julie & Julia meets Jodi Picoult in this poignant and delectable novel with recipes, chronicling one woman’s journey of self-discovery at the stove. After the unexpected death of her parents, shy and sheltered twenty-six-year-old Ginny Selvaggio, isolated by Asperger’s Syndrome, seeks comfort in family recipes. But the rich, peppery scent of her Nonna’s soup draws an unexpected visitor into … draws an unexpected visitor into the kitchen: the ghost of Nonna herself, dead for twenty years, who appears with a cryptic warning–before vanishing like steam from a cooling dish.
A haunted kitchen isn’t Ginny’s only challenge. Her domineering sister Amanda insists on selling their parents’ house in Philadelphia, the only home Ginny has ever known. As she packs up her parents’ belongings, Ginny finds evidence of family secrets she isn’t sure how to unravel. She knows how to turn milk into cheese and cream into butter, but she doesn’t know why her mother hid a letter in the bedroom chimney, or the identity of the woman in her father’s photographs. The more she learns, the more she realizes the keys to these riddles lie with the dead, and there’s only one way to get answers: cook from dead people’s recipes, raise their ghosts, and ask them.
Offering a fascinating glimpse into the unique mind of a woman suffering from Asperger’s and featuring evocative and mouth-watering descriptions of food, this lyrical novel is as delicious and joyful as a warm brownie.
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With an ending wrapped around a Thanksgiving celebration, it seems (retrospectively) that reading this book over that same holiday was a perfect fit, as it’s a story driven by concepts of connectedness, truth, gratitude, and the candid acceptance of what life IS, not necessarily what we thought or wish it might be.
I LOVED this book.
I read it after another author introduced me to Jael McHenry through an article she wrote called “Writing Someone Else’s Story,” a piece that posits a debate/discussion about the current literary zeitgeist that questions “who gets to tell stories of #ownvoices/diversity/race/disability/ethnicity/etc.” McHenry suggests that it’s possible, in today’s more critical, sensitive, “fear of appropriation” literary environment, she might not have written this story whose protagonist deals with Asperger’s syndrome given that she, herself, does not. And what a lose that would have been!
(I urge you to seek out that article; it’s a very fascinating discussion on the topic and many authors weigh in with comments on all sides of the debate).
The Kitchen Daughter revolves around two adult sisters, Amanda (“normal”) and Ginny (“atypical”), who are hit with the sudden death of their parents. The tragedy leaves Ginny home alone in the family house, and Amanda (married, two daughters) convinced she needs to intercede and intervene to not only keep her sister safe, but move her into her own home and ultimately get her diagnosed, so that the treatments she believes are necessary to help improve Ginny’s life can begin.
Ginny will have none of it.
The story is told from Ginny’s point of view, which not only brings us inside her unique perspective on the world and people around her, but into the coping mechanisms, traits and behaviors she’s developed over the years to find and re-find solid ground in her always undulating life. One of those mechanisms is cooking.
Having learned from her mother and grandmother, she discovered early on that cooking—the mechanics of it, the ingredients, smells, tactile sensations, tastes—calms her mind, gives her task and structure, allowing her to get grounded in moments of chaos. We are regaled with descriptions of recipes, cooking techniques, and various delectable foods and dishes that whet our appetites and keep us warm and connected in Ginny’s kitchen, but shortly after her parent’s deaths, the act of cooking conjures up more than expected: she discovers that by using handwritten recipes of the deceased, she causes them to suddenly appear in full form on the kitchen stool, there to explain things and offer cryptic commentary.
First, it’s her grandmother, then a mysterious woman she doesn’t know; then her mother, and as each character comes then, all too quickly, fades away, she’s left with lingering questions and burgeoning confusion. She begins to actively seek out ways to bring forth others who might have answers for her… or for others in her life, including David, the son of the family’s beloved housekeeper, who has lost his wife and with whom she develops a friendship.
From there the story takes some painful, unanticipated turns that makes myriad demands on Ginny—and Amanda¬—which cause them both to examine who they are and what they expect of each other, challenging and leading them—and us—to the story’s touching, emotional conclusion.
Given Jael’s aforementioned article, and the comments of some reviewers about whether or not someone who is not “atypical” can tell an honest, authentic story about someone who is, I can only say that it is clear to me that this author did her homework, her research, and told this story with extreme compassion and sensitivity. Having people in my own life with Asperger’s, I did not find any of the character development of Ginny to ring false or seem patronizing. Every person with the syndrome presents it differently, and this particular depiction rang true to me, inspiring tremendous endearment for the book’s main character.
Beyond that, it was a beautiful, engaging, deeply moving story about our connectedness in life and our lingering attachments after death, and as I put it down, I knew it would be one that would stay with me for a long time.