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"Ultimately the
reason to read The Rib King is not its timeliness or its insight into politics
or Black culture, but because it accomplishes what the best fiction sets out to
do: It drops you into a world you could not otherwise visit and makes you care
deeply about what happens there."--BookPage (starred review)
The acclaimed author
of The Talented Ribkins deconstructs painful African American stereotypes and
offers a fresh and searing critique on race, class, privilege, ambition,
exploitation, and the seeds of rage in America in this intricately woven and
masterfully executed historical novel, set in early the twentieth century that
centers around the black servants of a down-on-its heels upper-class white
family.
For fifteen years
August Sitwell has worked for the Barclays, a well-to-do white family who
plucked him from an orphan asylum and gave him a job. The groundskeeper is part
of the household's all-black staff, along with "Miss Mamie," the talented cook,
pretty new maid Jennie Williams, and three young kitchen apprentices--the latest
orphan boys Mr. Barclay has taken in to "civilize" boys like August.
But the Barclays
fortunes have fallen, and their money is almost gone. When a prospective
business associate proposes selling Miss Mamie's delicious rib sauce to local
markets under the brand name "The Rib King"--using a caricature of a wildly
grinning August on the label--Mr. Barclay, desperate for cash, agrees. Yet
neither Miss Mamie nor August will see a dime. Humiliated, August grows
increasingly distraught, his anger building to a rage that explodes in shocking
tragedy.
Elegantly written and
exhaustively researched, The Rib King is an unsparing examination of America's
fascination with black iconography and exploitation that redefines African
American stereotypes in literature. In this powerful, disturbing, and timely
novel, Ladee Hubbard reveals who people actually are, and most importantly, who
and what they are not.
