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A Novel
by Andrea Bobotis
Book Reviewed by:Some bury their secrets close to home. Others scatter them to the wind and hope they land somewhere far away.
Judith inherited all the Kratt family had to offer—the pie safe, the copper clock, the murder that no one talked about. She's presided over the house quite well, thank you very much, admittedly with some help from her companion, Olva.
But her wayward younger sister suddenly returns home after decades, sparking an inventory of all that belongs to them. Set in the hard-luck cotton town of Bound, South Carolina—which the Kratts used to rule but which now struggles to contain its worst instincts—the new household overflows with memories.
Interweaving the present with chilling flashbacks from one fateful evening in 1929, Judith pieces together a list of what matters. Untangling the legacy of the family misfortunes will require help from every one of them, no matter how tight their bond, how long they've called Bound home, or what they own.
Murder Stuns Distinguished Family
Quincy Kratt, age 14, sustained a fatal gunshot wound to his person in the early hours of Friday, December 20. Young Mr. Kratt was a scion of the cotton industry in Bound, South Carolina. His father, the influential businessman Brayburn Kratt, is one of our local captains of that industry. The principal suspect in the shooting is a negro called Charlie Watson, who is employed by the Kratt Mercantile Company and whose whereabouts are as yet unknown.
one
May 1989
Whenever I hear a train's horn in the distance, that bruised sound, I think of Quincy. He spent half his days down at the depot, true enough, but it's the nature of the sound that reminds me of him, how it's at once familiar and remote. How upon hearing it, I feel obliged to lift my gaze and weigh the horizon, but how it leaves me with less than I had before, eyes reaching toward something I'll never see. After all, where that train's headed, ...
This is classic Southern fiction at its best! Quirky characters, interesting plotline, and great writing... A list of possessions becomes a list of memories and secrets kept for 60 years...continued
Full Review
(690 words)
(Reviewed by First Impressions Reviewers).
Cynthia Swanson, New York Times bestselling author of The Bookseller and The Glass Forest
The droll voice of Andrea Bobotis's heroine, Judith Kratt, might charm you but don't be fooled into thinking this is simply one woman's trip down memory lane. The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt is a multilayered story about family, race, loss, and loyalty, featuring a complex cast of characters led by a woman who learns it's never too late for growth and change. Emily Carpenter, author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls
Capturing the unique, singular voice of a once-genteel South that hid its deadly secrets and brutal crimes behind facades of grand houses, Andrea Bobotis gently leads you down a garden path of one family's shameful story only to leave you gasping at its devastating, inevitable destination. If William Faulkner were still alive, I'm pretty sure he'd wish he had written this book. Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang, Perfect Little World, and Baby, You're Gonna Be Mine
Andrea Bobotis has written an amazing novel, one which interrogates, with such controlled and beautiful writing, what it means to be Southern. Utilizing a unique form and a carefully crafted mystery, Bobotis is a writer capable of deep truths, and this novel announces her as a major voice. Leah Weiss, bestselling author of If the Creek Don't Rise
Andrea Bobotis is a new, original voice as Southern as they come! In The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt, she unravels a complicated web of dirty Southern secrets. Using masterful writing and a perfectly calculated reveal of damaged history, she ends up weaving a tapestry that is so much more. Tiffany Quay Tyson, author of Three Rivers and The Past is Never
As the keeper of the family treasures and the family secrets, Miss Judith Kratt is a Southern eccentric in the tradition of Faulkner's Miss Emily. But Miss Judith does not wallow in the past or embrace the dead. Instead, she works to protect the living. The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt is a universal and timely story that exposes the dangers of nostalgia and the value of assessing both things and people in a clear-eyed, honest way. It's a thoroughly captivating story and it's beautifully told.In Andrea Bobotis' The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt, an affluent white woman nearing the end of her life in the 1980s takes stock of her family estate in Bound, South Carolina, while recounting the years she spent there as a child during the 1930s. The novel offers a riveting tale of family secrets, revenge, and, especially, racial oppression in the Jim Crow South. As the story unfolds, the narrator muses about how race relations in America have changed since the time of her youth. In this, the novel joins a growing body of work that thoughtfully probes the nation's sinister history of racism.
In recent years racial tension has reached frightening levels in the USA. In a February 2019 poll conducted by the Pew Research Centre, 58% of ...
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