Cover the Butter
Carrie Kabak
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2005 Dutton Adult Books
ISBN: 0525948767

Middle-aged English Kate has spent her life pleasing everyone, suppressing all thoughts to her own needs.

Until that day, when she comes home to find her husband & teenage son have made a careless mess of her neat & pretty nest. This jolts Kate into seeing, clearly & for the first time, how she's let herself be smothered by trying to do what was expected of her. It starts her down her memory lane searching for how she got to this sorry place.

Once upon a time, when she was young & full of dreams, she'd wanted to be a professional cook, except her parents made her change her mind.

Once upon a time, when she was young & pretty, she'd fallen for a handsome young chap, except her parents forbad her to have anything to do with him.

Born in a tiny town in the West Country hardby Wales, with mischievous Welsh grandparents, Kate Cadogan is an only child of uptight, self-satisfied parents. Her mother had been a nurse at the local hospital for as long as Kate could remember, & her father was a mechanic... until they buy out the bakery & make a go of it.

Now, staring at the devastation of her perfect little nest, & at her husband whom she finally realizes she's never really loved, & at her son, whom she used to adore & who is now... well... a feckless slob, she goes into a fugue as she looks back on her life... with regret.

& that's when she decides to chuck it all, & start anew, in a new country... with a lot of help from her two best school chums.

Buoyant & charming, Cover the Butter is everso English, & everso funny as we follow Kate through her early years until her moment of truth. Talk about a mid-life crisis everywoman can relate to!

Cover the Butter is Carrie Kabak's debut novel, & I do hope she's got others cooking!
(06/19/05)

Rebecca