Sitwell and is now a budding entrepreneur. The second half picks up a decade later with Jennie, a young mother who worked as a maid with Mr. Sitwell, a servant to a landed white gentry family who have fallen on hard times, ends up selling the recipe for a barbecue sauce to an investor and in the process becomes The Rib King, the face of the brand's racist caricature. The first half tells the story of how Mr. It's also got a stilted first half with some pacing problems, a great middle, and then a blink and you missed it conclusion. This novel covers sadly timely topics (although it's set a century ago) such as race, class, sexism, privilege, xenophobia, and violence. Whew, I'm really struggling with what to rate this. (FYI, the author's first name is pronounced 'Lady.') It is due to be released (at this time) in January 0f 2021.

**I received this book in a Bookish Firsts giveaway. In this powerful, disturbing, and timely novel, Ladee Hubbard reveals who people actually are, and most importantly, who and what they are not.

Humiliated, August grows increasingly distraught, his anger building to a rage that explodes in shocking tragedy.Įlegantly 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. Yet neither Miss Mamie nor August will see a dime. 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 wearing a jewel-encrusted crown on the label-Mr. Barclay has taken in to 'civilize' boys like August.īut the Barclays fortunes have fallen, and their money is almost gone.

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. 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 the early twentieth century that centers around the black servants of a down-on-its heels upper-class white family.įor 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 talented ribkins by ladee hubbard