Why is someone who just defended her doctoral dissertation still wasting her time at her childhood home, two months after her mother's funeral, making coq au vin and osso buco? Olivia Tschetter, the youngest of four high-achieving South Dakotan siblings, is not returning to "normal"--or to graduate school-- quickly enough to suit her family. She wants only to bury herself in her mother's kitchen, finding solace in their shared passion for cooking.
Threatened with grief counseling, Olivia accepts a temporary position at the local Meals on Wheels, where she stumbles upon some unfinished business from her mother's past--and a dark family secret. Startling announcements from two siblings also challenge the family's status quo. The last thing she needs is a deepening romantic interest in a close but platonic (she thought) friend.
But while Olivia's mother is gone, her memory and spirit continue to engage Olivia, who finds herself daring to speak when she would never have spoken before. Told with humor and compassion, Starting from Scratch explores the shifting of family dynamics in the wake of shattering loss and the healing power of cooking.
Show moreWhy is someone who just defended her doctoral dissertation still wasting her time at her childhood home, two months after her mother's funeral, making coq au vin and osso buco? Olivia Tschetter, the youngest of four high-achieving South Dakotan siblings, is not returning to "normal"--or to graduate school-- quickly enough to suit her family. She wants only to bury herself in her mother's kitchen, finding solace in their shared passion for cooking.
Threatened with grief counseling, Olivia accepts a temporary position at the local Meals on Wheels, where she stumbles upon some unfinished business from her mother's past--and a dark family secret. Startling announcements from two siblings also challenge the family's status quo. The last thing she needs is a deepening romantic interest in a close but platonic (she thought) friend.
But while Olivia's mother is gone, her memory and spirit continue to engage Olivia, who finds herself daring to speak when she would never have spoken before. Told with humor and compassion, Starting from Scratch explores the shifting of family dynamics in the wake of shattering loss and the healing power of cooking.
Show moreBorn and raised in South Dakota, Susan Gilbert-Collins studied English at Oberlin College and holds an M.A. in English as a Second Language from the University of Minnesota. While she enjoyed teaching international students and adult immigrants, she now freelances as a technical writer in order to have more time to focus on her first love, fiction. She lives with her husband and young son in Rochester, New York.
"What a wonderful story of familial love, loss, and the healing
power of made-from-scratch food. I was completely absorbed by the
lives of the Tschetter family, and I very much want to be invited
to their house for dinner on a night when Olivia is cooking. Susan
Gilbert-Collins has written a fantastic debut novel: warm, witty,
and redemptive." --Susan Rebecca White, author of A Soft Place to
Land
"Take one part Jane Hamilton, one part Julie Powell, season
liberally with originality, and you have Starting from Scratch, the
tender, humorous debut. Blowing away preconceptions about
contemporary Midwesterners, this novel will be of particular
interest to anyone who's clashed with a sibling, mourned the
passing of a parent or wondered, even in young adulthood, what
they're going to do when they grow up." --Sally Koslow, author of
Little Pink Slips and With Friends like These.
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