Mr. Sitwell, a butler, and Jennie, a maid, are at the heart of this audiobook. The connection between the two African Americans begins in the Barclay household and continues beyond their years there as they navigate a world in which racism impacts their everyday lives. Korey Jackson narrates Mr. Sitwell’s portion of the audiobook; his bold, confident delivery suits the story of the future Rib King. However, overuse of certain narration techniques reduces the strength of Jackson’s performance. Adenrele Ojo captures the dramatic pitch of Jennie’s scenes. That said, her cadence falls into a pattern that can be distracting. In sum, both sections of the audiobook have strengths and weaknesses, but together the narrators turn in a listenable performance. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
The Rib King: A Novel
Narrated by Korey Jackson, Adenrele Ojo
Ladee HubbardUnabridged — 10 hours, 8 minutes
The Rib King: A Novel
Narrated by Korey Jackson, Adenrele Ojo
Ladee HubbardUnabridged — 10 hours, 8 minutes
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Overview
“Ladee Hubbard's voice is a welcome original.” -Mary Gaitskill
Upstairs, Downstairs meets Parasite: 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.
Editorial Reviews
11/02/2020
Hubbard (The Talented Ribkins) delves into issues of race, vengeance, redemption, and rage in this inventive historical. Beginning in 1914, the narrative follows groundskeeper August Sitwell and the other Black servants working for the Barclays, a once affluent Southern white family whose fortune is rapidly dwindling. As labor strikes and racial violence grow in their unnamed city, Sitwell begins to take an interest in the three orphans who have been hired to work as kitchen apprentices for Miss Mamie Price, the house cook. But his relationship to the boys and to the rest of the staff is put to the test when Mr. Barclay agrees to sell the recipe for Mamie’s meat sauce to one of his associates, who plans to market it locally and and use Sitwell’s likeness as the brand’s image—all without Sitwell’s or Mamie’s approval. Haunted by a brutal episode of violence instigated by Sitwell’s mother’s employer in Florida when he was a boy, Sitwell commits a startling act that alters the lives of everyone who works in the Barclay household. Hubbard’s prose brims with unspoken tensions and a prevailing sense of dread as she skillfully explores how the characters are impacted by trauma. Shocking and thought-provoking, Hubbard’s latest cements her status as an American original. Agent: Ayesha Pande, Ayesha Pande Literary Agency. (Jan.)
One of 2021's Best Fiction — Kirkus Reviews
"The novel goes far beyond a story of revenge. It is an engrossing account of Black genius and entrepreneurship in the early 20th century." — Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Hubbard delivers a dazzling tour-de-force in this richly painted, perfectly timed meditation on privilege and fury.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Ladee Hubbard’s sophomore novel, The Rib King, is a fascinating story about the intersection of ambition, race and revenge. . . Hubbard crafts unforgettable characters and masterfully builds suspense.” — Washington Post
“Hubbard’s own superpower is her gift for building extraordinary worlds that examine troubled periods of America’s past while shedding light on the unquestionable innovation and determination of African Americans who, perhaps improbably, thrived within them.” — Los Angeles Times
“One will be impressed at all times with Hubbard’s control over her historical milieu as well as her complicated, intriguing characterizations. . . . An imaginative work craftily depicting the failure of imagination that is American racism.” — Kirkus Reviews
"Finely written and worth a second read, this novel would be a fantastic choice for book discussion groups. With complete faithfulness to the text, it could also make an excellent movie." — Library Journal (starred review)
"Hubbard’s latest cements her status as an American original." — Publishers Weekly
Hubbard delivers a dazzling tour-de-force in this richly painted, perfectly timed meditation on privilege and fury.
Hubbard’s own superpower is her gift for building extraordinary worlds that examine troubled periods of America’s past while shedding light on the unquestionable innovation and determination of African Americans who, perhaps improbably, thrived within them.
"The novel goes far beyond a story of revenge. It is an engrossing account of Black genius and entrepreneurship in the early 20th century."
Ladee Hubbard’s sophomore novel, The Rib King, is a fascinating story about the intersection of ambition, race and revenge. . . Hubbard crafts unforgettable characters and masterfully builds suspense.
Ladee Hubbard’s sophomore novel, The Rib King, is a fascinating story about the intersection of ambition, race and revenge. . . Hubbard crafts unforgettable characters and masterfully builds suspense.
Hubbard’s own superpower is her gift for building extraordinary worlds that examine troubled periods of America’s past while shedding light on the unquestionable innovation and determination of African Americans who, perhaps improbably, thrived within them.
★ 01/01/2021
"Push back" is the common cry of the streetcar operator in Hubbard's second novel (after The Talented Ribkins), and main characters Sitwell, Mamie, and Jennie must overcome this command in very different ways. In 1914 New Orleans, the once wealthy white Barclays now struggle to pay every bill. They have only Black servants and take in three Black orphan boys from a nearby asylum. Many years ago, Sitwell was one such orphan and recognizes his present situation for what it really is, working for little reward as a stereotypical Black butler doing parlor tricks to entertain guests. When he and the cook, Mamie, collaborate to create a sauce to cover meager offerings at an important dinner for a favorable business prospect, it is a big hit. The Rib King sauce goes into production, with a mocking caricature of Sitwell on the bottle, and is soon hugely successful—but not to the benefit of its creators. With a shocking tragedy, the story truly takes off, as stereotypes crash down and Mamie and Jennie leave to find something valuable of their own. VERDICT Finely written and worth a second read, this novel would be a fantastic choice for book discussion groups. With complete faithfulness to the text, it could also make an excellent movie.—Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH
Mr. Sitwell, a butler, and Jennie, a maid, are at the heart of this audiobook. The connection between the two African Americans begins in the Barclay household and continues beyond their years there as they navigate a world in which racism impacts their everyday lives. Korey Jackson narrates Mr. Sitwell’s portion of the audiobook; his bold, confident delivery suits the story of the future Rib King. However, overuse of certain narration techniques reduces the strength of Jackson’s performance. Adenrele Ojo captures the dramatic pitch of Jennie’s scenes. That said, her cadence falls into a pattern that can be distracting. In sum, both sections of the audiobook have strengths and weaknesses, but together the narrators turn in a listenable performance. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
2021-01-13
A historical thriller delves into the raw, knotty roots of racial uplift and upheaval that have been transforming America up to the present moment.
In her debut, The Talented Ribkins, (2017), Hubbard ingeniously blended the motifs of superhero comic books into a bittersweet road novel tracing the scattered destinies of Black civil rights crusaders. Her follow-up departs from the fantastic but is no less inventive. It begins in 1914 New Orleans with August Sitwell, an enigmatic, circumspect Black man working as groundskeeper for an estate belonging to the Barclays, an upper-class White family no longer as wealthy as it once was. Sitwell became part of the family’s all-Black domestic staff when he was orphaned as a child and has grown to manhood working with “Miss Mamie,” the family’s prodigious cook, and, more recently, with Jennie Williams, a one-time “cakewalk dancer”–turned-maid, and three rambunctious young apprentices, also orphans, whom the family patriarch seeks to “civilize.” As the staff struggles to negotiate their lives among Southern Whites in the depths of the Jim Crow era, the Barclays, desperately seeking a way out of the financial doldrums, make a bargain with an ambitious food entrepreneur to sell Miss Mamie’s vaunted rib sauce to local markets under the brand “The Rib King” with Sitwell’s caricatured image on the label. Neither Mamie nor Sitwell are getting a cent from this transaction, and Sitwell reacts to this exploitation with an act of retribution that reverberates into the next decade as Jennie, by 1924 an entrepreneur with her own brand of beauty products to sell, has to make her perilous way through economic and political intrigue brought about in part by the decade’s surge of African American achievement. The two halves of Hubbard’s chronicle have distinct tones. And even if one prefers the deadpan gothic tactics of the first part to the pell-mell momentum of the second, one will be impressed at all times with Hubbard’s control over her historical milieu as well as her complicated, intriguing characterizations.
An imaginative work craftily depicting the failure of imagination that is American racism.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940176987485 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 01/19/2021 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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