The Stuttering Kitchens
A Novel
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The Stuttering Kitchens
Pre-order Now for €17.99
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Narrated by:
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Charles Linshaw
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By:
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Jake Wolff
In a novel both intimate and expansive, World War II comes to a farm through a crew of Nazi prisoners, and each of the family members must reckon with the legacies of violence and the imperfections of love and forgiveness.
It is the summer of 1944, and the war has come to Maine.
Ever since her father was killed overseas and her brother enlisted, Melanie Kitchen has been doing all she can to run the family’s potato farm. So when the army opens a prison camp in town, she signs up for a crew of Nazi prisoners to work the fields. Their arrival brings back her older brother, Leigh, now a guard with the Military Police whose stutter—a family trait on their mother’s side—somehow disappears when he speaks German.
War is not the only shadow darkening the farm. Leigh’s return disrupts the strained peace that has settled on the family. Melanie is the only child called to the work, but she won’t inherit the farm. Leigh and their younger brother, Joseph, have suffered terribly at their father’s hands. So has their mother, Dorothy, who alternates between periods of paranoia, calm, and despair, and excludes Melanie from her family legacy: that the Kitchens are the only Jews in town is a closely guarded secret.
The Nazis draw out the family’s tensions and fears around the farm, their father, their past, and their future. Then a string of mysterious deaths hit the camp, and Leigh is drafted to investigate. His discoveries will force another reckoning.
Intimate and expansive, Jake Wolff's The Stuttering Kitchens explores the many ways in which we are harmed and yet called to the necessity of forgiveness. Clear-eyed and moving, it brings World War II into the broken, beating, yearning heart of a family.
Reviews
“The Stuttering Kitchens is a deeply felt, engrossing novel about identity, loyalty, trust, and power. It’s also the story of a family struggling with its own violent past while confronting the palpable aftereffects of a world war. Jake Wolff’s ambition is matched by his talent, and the result is a book—and a cast of characters—that will stick with me for a long time.”
—Patrick Ryan, author of Buckeye
“Near the end of World War II, the Kitchen family’s New England farm sees the arrival of Nazis, German prisoners of war sent to help them work the fields. As they navigate the increasing demands of a small farm and the mysterious allegiances and motivations of the prisoners, they must also reckon with long, contentious family histories and the haunting presence of their tyrant father, presumed dead overseas. Expertly crafted and cleverly written, Jake Wolff’s captivating and thoughtful The Stuttering Kitchens will challenge all your preconceived notions of morality while delivering this year’s must-read novel.”
—Adam Johnson, author of The Wayfinder
"A gorgeous, timely, and masterful novel. Wolff is a true storyteller with a strong sense of pacing, and the ability to balance the emotional weight of a character’s life with the context of a book’s larger histories, ideas, and themes. Good god I love this novel."
—CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife
