I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots, Paperback

"Straight's portrayal of a black woman's life is nearly miraculous in its astonishing richness of detail, its emotional honesty and its breadth of human thought and feeling." --USA Today

Evoking the Gullah-speaking 1950s community of Pine Gardens, South Carolina, I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots follows Marietta Cook, a maid with a growing interest in the civil rights movement, as she raises talented twin boys destined for pro football glory and comes to find peace in an often unjust world.

Imbued with extraordinary resilience and joy, Susan Straight's debut is a celebration of an extraordinary soul and a novel with a beautifully vivid sense of place.

SUSAN STRAIGHT has published eight novels. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and received the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement from the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the O. Henry Prize, the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She was born in Riverside, California, where she lives with her family. Her latest book is In the Country of Women, a memoir. Find out more at susanstraight.com.