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Overall Summary
The Kitchen House is a historical fiction novel by Kathleen Grissom. It’s set on the southern Virginia plantation of Captain James Pyke during 1791, and it follows two main characters: Lavinia, an orphaned Irish girl who becomes an indentured servant, and Belle, the daughter of James and his slave. The book switches between first-person narratives from both Lavinia and Belle over 55 chapters.
The novel begins with a young girl whose parents are trying to come to America, but they die on the ship. James agrees to let her live in his house as an indentured servant because he needs someone who can take care of him when he gets older. She is put into the kitchen house since she has no money or family members left. Belle watches over Lavinia and eventually becomes like a mother figure for her, forming an unbreakable bond between them.
Belle was born into slavery and raised by her white father’s wife. She was taught to read and write, but when she became a teenager, her father married Martha. Belle moved out of the big house and became a slave in the kitchen house so that Martha wouldn’t find out about their relationship. Her father still favored her, however, and he offered Belle freedom if she wanted it later on in life. She refused because she loved being close to home with Ben (another slave) who would eventually become her husband despite his marriage to another woman.
Lavinia is neither a slave nor a member of the big house. She’s an indentured servant, which means she has to live in the slaves’ quarters and work for her freedom. Because of this, she grows close to them like they’re her family. She also gets close with Martha who loses several miscarriages and loses her young daughter on a swing accident.
When James dies, Martha goes to a psychiatric hospital and leaves Lavinia with her sister’s family in Williamsburg. There, she receives an education.
Lavinia is in love with the overseer at Tall Oaks, Will Stephens. She suspects that he is the father of Belle’s son, Jamie, and rejects his marriage proposal. Instead, she accepts the proposal of an old widower, Mr. Boran. When Mr. Boran attempts to rape Lavinia, James’ and Martha’s son Marshall intervenes. The two fall in love and soon marry; they become master and mistress of Tall Oaks plantation after William dies unexpectedly from a heart attack on their wedding night. They have one daughter named Elly together. However, Lavinia becomes aware that Marshall abuses her slaves: he rapes Belle (his own sister) and fathered Jamie – who was born out-of-wedlock with another slave woman while married to Lavinia. Although she loves him, Lavinia cannot stand by as her husband continues his abuse against other women ; therefore, she divorces him for adultery with several slaves before leaving Tall Oaks forever.
Marshall’s violence may stem from his childhood. His father was never around, and his mother was always on laudanum (a type of painkiller). Marshall grew up with a lot of anger toward the slaves because he saw them as the reason why his parents weren’t present for him.
In the end of the book, Marshall tries to sell off his slaves. Lavinia and Mama Mae hatch a plan to stop him, but in the process, it’s revealed that Belle is actually Marshall’s sister. In retaliation for this knowledge being made public, Jamie shoots his father dead with a gun he found under the floorboards. Later on, Lavinia claims that she shot her husband while Uncle Jacob takes credit for it because he believes himself to be dead at this point (he was killed by Mamma Mae earlier).
