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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jun 2005, 368 pages
Paperback:
May 2006, 368 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
Carrie Kabak assures us that Cover The Butter is not
autobiographical. However, it would seem that she has much in
common with her protagonist. Like Kate, she was discouraged from following
her artistic talent and desires and instead was directed firmly towards a "real
job". She says, "At eighteen, it was time to line up for career advice at
school. The Head Teacher studied our exam results. She pointed to each girl,
teacher, bank, nurse, teacher, bank, nurse. I was labelled 'teacher' and
encouraged to train for a real job.... So I went to Cardiff University to train
as a French, English and Art teacher. At college, an English professor pulled me
to one side. Why was I teaching, he asked. Why wasn't I writing? Because it's
not a proper job, I explained. Then make it one, he said."
Instead, she got married, taught, designed, and raised four children -
then, six years ago, she moved from the UK to the USA and started to illustrate
children's books, but it took another four years for her to finally take the
plunge and start writing her first book, Cover The Butter. She is
now at work on Tarts and Sinners, an interwoven tale set in England told
from three different viewpoints: Annie Ruddock, a 58 year-old vicar's wife
in love with a cross-dressing bell ringer, 46-year-old Jane Frobisher who's
obsessed with chickens (and whose husband is having an affair with a Camilla
Parker-Bowles look-alike), and Fiona Wiggins, aged 23, who's obsessed with the
Fabulous Fifties.
Carrie now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, with her husband and their five sons.
This article was originally published in July 2005, and has been updated for the
May 2006 paperback release.
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