Indies Introduce

Fiction

  • Kitchens of the Great Midwest, J. Ryan Stradal
    Viking/Pam Dorman Books, 9780525429142, July 28, 2015 (Fiction)

    At a time when I feel overwhelmed by our culture of irony and cool cynicism, Stradal’s debut shines like a beacon of warm-hearted hope. A different character and a different dish are featured in each chapter, and we are left with a beautiful image of food, culture, and family. KITCHENS OF THE GREAT MIDWEST is the book I’ve been looking for.

    Amanda Hurley, Inkwood Books (Tampa, FL)

    Stradal's ambitious and already much buzzed about novel hardly needs me for a cheerleader -- but I, too, loved it! In the story of Midwestern chef savant Eva Thorvald and the people -- and foods -- that touch her life, Stradal has created a picture of the American foodie revolution of the past 25 years and its intersections with class, economics, family, and culture. Along with irresistible characters and stories, this is a novel about the potential that food and cooking offer for joy and empowerment, for snobbery and shame, for identity and reinvention. Beautifully structured, affectionately and hilariously written, brilliantly subtexted, this is a novel that -- like Thorvald's exclusive pop-up restaurant The Dinner -- everyone is going to be talking about.

    Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, Greenlight Bookstore

    I don't often laugh out loud while reading books, but this one got me quite a few times. The first 20 pages or so are filled with hilarious lines that I couldn't help reading out loud to my boss. The rest of the book isn't quite as funny, but makes up for it in damn good writing. The story centers around Eva Thorvald, who possesses "a once in a lifetime palate." One part of the book actually follows Eva; the rest of the chapters are told from the perspectives of people whose lives she touched, some only briefly and some for a longer period of time, but all indelibly. It reminds me a bit of THE BONE CLOCKS by David Mitchell, another book about a woman who offers redemption to a number of people, only to have some slap it away in anger. Some of the people we follow simply happen to know her at a pivotal moment in their lives. Through their eyes, we see Eva's maturation and success as a one-of-a-kind celebrity chef and eventually wind our way back to the mother who abandoned her just months after her birth. It's a fabulous book, all the more impressive for being a debut, and I encourage everyone to pick it up as soon as it is published.

    Elayna Trucker, Napa Bookmine (Napa, CA)

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