My second novel is set in a right-wing dystopia thirty years in the future. It was sparked by a conversation I had with my uncle about the criminal justice system, but it really caught fire for me during the George W. Bush years. It's about crime and punishment, but also about the erosion of civil and reproductive rights, the dangers of blurring the lines between church and state, and the inevitability of environmental catastrophe if we don't pull our heads out of the sand and act to stop it.
Wherever the Next Word Takes Me I don't outline my books, and half the time I don't know what's happening in the next paragraph, much less the next chapter. I basically pull it out of my brain a sentence at a time.
Readers Frequently Ask
Q: Why did you choose to tell Mudbound in six different voices?
A: I wanted to make the process of writing my first novel as difficult as possible.
Q: Do you believe in writer's block and, if so, how do you get past it?
A: We all have days when the writing comes slowly, badly, painfully. Sometimes you have to step away and go refill the well; take a walk somewhere beautiful, see a play, go shoe shopping. But in the end, there's no cure but sitting down with that pristine white page and mucking it up with words.
Q: Did Ronsel Jackson, the black soldier who is victimized upon his return from WWII, really pull through and lead a happy life as you suggest at the end of Mudbound?
A: What do you think?
The Great Storytellers Who Have Influenced My Writing The writers I love are first and foremost great storytellers who grab hold of you on page one and don't let go till THE END. To name a few: Austen, for her ability to create perfect snow globes, vivid encapsulations of her world filled with indelible characters. Flannery O'Connor, for the way she uses dark comedy to tackle huge themes and shed light on the human condition. Shakespeare, for the magnificence of his prose and the breadth of his understanding. Faulkner, Barbara Kingsolver, Marilynne Robinson, Styron, Ishiguro, James Baldwin and a host of others have made me the writer I am today….
To my knowledge, nobody on my mother's side of the family has ever been thin. This is the Southern side, the side that wore gray in the war (which is pronounced “woe-wah” and refers as a matter of course to The War Between the States). My maternal forebears were Kirkwoods and Betheas and Morrisons and Scarboroughs who hailed from places like Talledega and Charleston and Oxford, Mississippi and who always kept a can of bacon grease on the stove, because almost any Southern recipe that's not a dessert starts with “Heat two tablespoons of bacon grease in a skillet.” These were Deep Southerners, people who loved to cook and eat.
Cliché though it may be, it's almost impossible to overstate the Southern zeal for food — especially the rich, luscious, waist-thickening, artery-clogging kind — or the passion we bring to the act of cooking. I remember the tender look on my grandmother's face when she set a platter of fried chicken on the table in front of my grandfather, and how ardently she watched him take that first bite. In my family, cooking is a form of lovemaking.
How much more so, then, must it have been to cook three meals a day on a wood stove in a shotgun shack with no electricity or indoor plumbing? These were the dire circumstances my grandmother found herself in shortly after World War II, when my grandfather moved her and their two young daughters from the comfort of the city to a ramshackle farm in rural Arkansas. Mudbound was inspired by stories about that farm and the tumultuous year they spent there. And because it's a Southern story, food (along with floods, family discord, forbidden love, and dead mules) figures prominently in it.
AUNT FAYE'S FAMOUS PEACH CHESS PIE
Makes 1 (9-inch) pie; serves 6 people with self-restraint, 4 in my family
The peach chess pie mentioned in the first chapter narrated by Laura — the heroine of Mudbound who ends up rebelling against the traditions of Southern womanhood in which she was raised — is one of the most prized recipes in my family. It comes from Aunt Faye, a genteel Southern lady known for her highly caloric dishes. She wasn't a blood relation, but her husband, Bob Poole, was my grandfather's doctor. This man convinced my grandfather to have stomach surgery after thirty years of painful ulcers and, as a result, allowed him to enjoy food again. Including Aunt Faye's famous pie.
I like to serve this pie when it's slightly warm but not hot, though it's also excellent at room temperature and makes a deliciously naughty breakfast straight out of the fridge.
Note: When separating the eggs, take care not to contaminate the whites with any yolk. If you do, try to fish it out with a piece of eggshell or small spoon. Don't use your fingers; the oil on them will keep the whites from expanding properly. Even a drop of yellow will ruin the meringue so, if you're not sure you've gotten every last bit of yolk, throw out the whites and start over. After separating the eggs (reserving 2 yolks and discarding the third), set the whites aside to come to room temperature. Chilled egg whites won't achieve their full volume, and meringue is all about volume. Aunt Faye held a very dim view of any cook who couldn't make her meringue stand tall.
FOR THE FILLING
3–4 local, in-season peaches (1½ cups' worth of slices), ripe but still nice and firm
½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large egg yolks (see note)
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
FOR THE CRUST
1 (9-inch) frozen pie crust (Aunt Faye will never know, and neither will your guests. If the store's out, or if you simply must make your own, I like Martha Stewart's recipe, or see recipes on p. 72; 235).
FOR THE MERINGUE
3 large egg whites, at room temperature (see note)
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
5 tablespoons sugar
1 Set rack in middle of oven. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2 To make the filling: Peel and pit the peaches and cut into wedges about ½-inch thick. Set aside.
3 In large bowl of electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add egg yolks and beat to combine. Add flour and salt and beat to combine. Add sliced peaches and stir in by hand (batter will be thick). Spoon evenly into frozen pie shell.
4 Place pie in oven. Cooking time is about 50 minutes. The pie is done when it's golden brown on top, there's no liquidy jiggling, and a knife stuck in the center comes out clean.
5 When the pie is almost cooked, make the meringue: Beat the egg whites at medium speed until frothy. Add the cream of tartar, increase speed to high, and beat until stiff. Add the sugar a tablespoon at a time, beating continuously. The meringue is done when it makes stiff, shiny peaks (check by lifting up the beaters) and doesn't feel grainy when rubbed between your fingers.
6 Remove pie from oven. Spoon the meringue onto the piping hot pie and sculpt it using a small spatula or the back of a spoon so that you have tall, magnificent peaks (they may curl over slightly, but that's just fine). Bake for an additional 10 minutes or so, until the meringue is lightly browned overall, and the peaks are a darker brown.
7 Allow to cool on a wire rack. When you slice the pie, the meringue will be at least twice as tall as the filling if you've done your job right, and you'll stand a little taller too, knowing that you would have earned Aunt Faye's respect.
CATFISH BENEDICT
Makes 4 servings
Recipe courtesy of Brian Kaywork, Executive Chef of the Rhinecliff Hotel in Rhinecliff, New York
The Delta is almost as renowned for catfish as for cotton, and this fish is mentioned several times in Mudbound. Laura, the heroine of Mudbound, would have fried it (and you can't go wrong with fried catfish), but I wanted a more modern twist. So I asked my friend Brian Kaywork, the very talented chef of the Rhinecliff Inn, to create a recipe. He may be a Yankee, but the Catfish Benedict he came up with can only be described as heaven on a plate.
Note: Preparation time for this dish is about 1 hour.
Clarified butter is pure butterfat, made by removing the milk solids and water fro
m butter. To clarify butter: Melt 1½ sticks of unsalted butter slowly in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a bit; the milk solids will sink to the bottom. Skim any foam off the top and discard. Pour off the clear liquid — this is the clarified butter — and leave behind the milk solids.
White Lily all-purpose flour, long a staple of southern baking, produces light, fluffy biscuits. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find outside the South. You can substitute a combination of ½ cup all-purpose flour, such as Pillsbury, and ½ cup cake flour.
If you can't find crawfish, you can substitute ½ pound medium shrimp in the shell or 1/3 pound precooked, shelled shrimp. (If you use precooked shrimp, skip the poaching process and just add the shrimp to the completed hollandaise sauce.) For frozen, precooked shrimp or crawfish, defrost in advance, allow to reach room temperature, and pat dry thoroughly before adding to sauce.
Time this recipe carefully. I use one double boiler working for the hollandaise, one pan for the poached eggs, and one sauté pan for the spinach cooking at the same time. That should mean that everything will be finished at the same time.
FOR THE CRAWFISH
¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, melted and clarified (see note)
½ pound crawfish (see note)
FOR THE BISCUITS
1 cup all-purpose flour (preferred brand is White Lily) (see note)
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces
2 tablespoons plus
2 teaspoons heavy cream
1/3 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons butter, melted, for brushing on top
FOR THE CATFISH
10 ounces catfish fillet, cut into 4 portions
¼ teaspoon salt
Pinch freshly ground black pepper
Pinch seafood seasoning, such as Old Bay
FOR THE POACHED EGGS
4 cups water
2 tablespoons white vinegar
4 large eggs
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
FOR THE SPINACH
1 tablespoon olive oil or butter
½ pound baby spinach
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
FOR THE HOLLANDAISE
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon water
A few dashes hot pepper sauce
Pinch salt
Pinch freshly ground black pepper
1 Preheat oven to 400°F.
2 To poach the crawfish: In a 12-quart pot, heat the clarified butter to 160°F and try to maintain this constant temperature. Place the crawfish in the butter and cook for 8–10 minutes, maintaining a constant low temperature. Strain the crawfish, reserving the butter. When cool, peel the crawfish, pat the tail meat dry, and reserve it.
3 To make the biscuits: Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Using a pastry cutter, 2 knives used in scissor fashion, or your fingertips, cut butter into the flour until pea-sized (it is key to the recipe to have pea-sized pieces). Add the cream and buttermilk, and stir lightly with a fork until a sticky mass forms. Turn onto a floured surface, and fold gently 2–3 times. Use a good bit of flour and only a couple of folds. Be sure not to overwork the biscuits: do not knead, only fold the mixture. The dough should be smooth and cohesive when done. Press dough until it's 1½–2 inches thick. Use a 3- or 4-inch round cookie cutter or glass to cut dough into rounds (you should get 2 or 3 biscuits). Bake on ungreased baking sheet for 13–15 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from oven and brush the tops with melted butter. Allow to cool on baking sheet.
4 To prepare the catfish (the catfish can be baked in the same oven as the biscuits, space permitting): Season the fish on both sides with salt, pepper, and seafood seasoning. Place on oiled nonstick pan or preheated cast-iron skillet, and bake in oven for approximately 10–12 minutes, until fully opaque. Turn the oven off, cover the fish, and keep warm in the oven for no longer than 15 minutes.
5 To prepare poaching liquid for eggs: Place water and vinegar in a 3-quart shallow pan and bring to just under a boil.
6 While water is heating, prepare the spinach: Heat oil or butter in medium saucepan over medium heat. Add spinach and sauté until wilted. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside, covered, to keep warm.
7 To poach the eggs: The water should be at 170°F. Crack each egg into a small cup with a handle. Lower lips of the cups into the water at the same time, and gently tip the eggs into the water. Be sure not to break the yolks as you are placing in the water!You should see the egg whites envelop the yolks and the eggs will float to the top. Cook for approximately 4–5 minutes. The whites should feel and appear firm and the yolks should have a little “give” to them. Using a slotted spoon, remove eggs to a clean dish towel to remove excess water. If the eggs are done before the rest of the dish, no prob-lem! Keep the eggs on the towel, then assemble the dish and place the eggs back into the water to reheat. Season with salt and pepper before layering on dish.
8 To prepare the hollandaise sauce: Warm reserved butter in a small saucepan. Place egg yolks, vinegar and lemon juice in top of a double boiler or a heatproof bowl set over a pan of gently boiling water. Whisk together. Slowly add the melted butter with constant whisking. After half of the butter is incorporated, add the tablespoon of water, and then add remaining melted butter. Control the temperature of the hollandaise by removing it from the double boiler or pan if it seems too hot. Water can be added (just a little!) if the hollandaise appears too thick. Remove from heat and add the crawfish tails, hot pepper sauce, salt, and pepper. Cover and keep in a warm spot.
9 To assemble the dish: Split 2 biscuits and place biscuit halves on individual serving plates. If necessary, trim bottom surface of catfish fillets to ensure they will lie flat. Build the Benedict in this order: biscuit, spinach, catfish, egg, and then top with hollandaise. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.
HILL'S FRIED CHICKEN
Serves 3–4, or 1 grad student for the better part of a week
I included a recipe for fried chicken because it is, for me, the ultimate Southern comfort food. It's what I make whenever I'm feeling blue or missing my family. And unlike my heroine, Laura, I don't have to kill, disembowel, and pluck a chicken to get it. If I did, I'd undoubtedly be a lot thinner.
1 small (3½-pound) broiler-fryer chicken, cut into 8 pieces
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
3–4 cups canola oil or solid vegetable shortening (the latter is best, but it has those wicked trans fats)
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup rice flour
1–2 tablespoons Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning (or make your own mixture of equal parts salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and cumin)
1 Put on some appropriate music, e.g., John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, or Keb Mo. Pour yourself a beer or a Jack & Coke.
2 Wash chicken and dry well with paper towels, removing any excess skin or fat (but don't remove all of the skin). Season generously with salt and pepper and let sit at room temperature for half an hour.
3 In a large, preferably cast-iron skillet, heat the oil or shortening on medium-high to about 350°F (hot enough that a pinch of flour dropped into it makes a robust sizzle). The liquid should cover the chicken about two-thirds of the way but no more.
4 As the oil or shortening heats, mix the flours and seasoning together in a large resealable plastic bag. Add the dark meat (drumsticks and thighs) and shake until well-coated. Shake off excess flour and place skin side down in the pan. (If you're cooking more than one chicken for a large group, resist the urge to hurry the process by crowding the pan.) Fry until skin is a lovely crisp brown, 7–9 minutes, then turn and fry the other side, 4–6 minutes.
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bsp; 5 Place chicken pieces on a wire rack set over a jelly roll pan to drain, or on a plate covered in paper towels. Coat and fry the white meat pieces next, 10–12 minutes per side for the breasts (longer if they're very thick) and slightly less for the wings.
6 Think of Dixie, and not your arteries, as you savor every last succulent bite.
Kathleen Kent
Deborah Feingold
SELECTED WOEKS
The Wolves of Andover (2010)
The Heretic's Daughter (2008)
Inspiration I grew up hearing stories about Martha Carrier, my grandmother from nine generations back on my mother's side who was hanged as a witch in Salem in 1692. I was always fascinated by the events leading up to the witch trials, but also with the many family tales about the Carrier family's life in seventeenth century New England. I was certain that someday I would weave history and family legend together into a work of fiction, one that that now exists in The Heretic's Daughter.
Readers Should Know Wherever possible, I tried to use actual names, dates, and places to bring authenticity to my work. The Wolves of Andover, the prequel to The Heretic's Daughter, is the story of Martha's husband Thomas Carrier who, according to family legend, lived to 109, stood seven feet tall, and was one of the executioners of King Charles I of England. As with the first novel, I used both fictitious and true-to-life characters to develop a story of intrigue, one that includes spies, assassins, heroes, and villains.
Readers Frequently Ask The over-arching theme of The Heretic's Daughter is about the Salem witch trials. However, the heart of the book is a coming-of-age story about a daughter learning to appreciate the strength of her difficult mother who unflinchingly defends her innocence through the growing witch hysteria. Many people have asked if the character of Martha was modeled after anyone in particular in my family. With a great deal of pride, I answer that she is a composite character, built from the words and deeds of the ferocious Carrier women I have known.
Authors That Have Influenced My Writing My favorite books as a young adult were by Charles Dickens. His characters, richly drawn from his own experiences in the back alleys and poor-houses of London, always seemed to reverberate with a profound sense of both the sublime and the ridiculous. And, despite having to sleep with the light on, I often read the works of Edgar Allan Poe for his atmospheric descriptions of the supernatural and the darker side of the human experience.
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