I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots: A Novel
by Susan Straight

A historic novel about a young woman forced to grow up quickly, and whose life—as well as those of her twin sons—changes with the current of the times
Beginning in the late 1950s, this novel tells the story of Marietta Cook, a tall girl growing up in Pine Gardens, a Gullah-speaking village in South Carolina. When Marietta’s mother passes, she heads to Charleston in search of her uncle—only to find a lover and return pregnant with twins two years later. She raises her sons back home in the low country before moving the family to Charleston, where she takes a growing interest in football and the civil rights movement. The boys grow huge and talented at the game, playing pro football in California. A new world and new travails await, but Marietta’s great resilience endures.

This is the life of an extraordinary soul, and a novel with a beautifully vivid sense of place.