Carrie Kabak's Cover The Butter

Carrie Kabak’s debut novel Cover the Butter (Dutton/Penguin (USA), 2005) is a heart-warming and, at times heart-breaking, coming-of-age tale of a forty-something British housewife who realizes that it is never too late to cut the apron strings. The protagonist and narrator, Katie Cadogan, returns from holiday to find that her son all but destroyed the house she spent months restoring for him. Stupefied by the wreckage, Katie takes a wine induced journey back to the day she was given her first bra. Beginning in the mid-sixties and ending in the mid-nineties, Katie recounts her oft times hilarious adventures growing up in a small English village with a controlling mother, a spineless father, two devoted best friends, and a few bad men. The primary

She allows nearly everyone in her life to define who she is and what she will become. As is true for most people, Katie’s instability and lack of personal strength is a reflection of the emotional abuse sustained in her wonder years. Her mother, Biddy Cadogan, is the primary barrier between Katie and self-determination. Biddy is the quintessential Irish Catholic mother devoted to improving what she believes is Katie’s wayward behavior. She scrutinizes and commands every aspect of Katie’s life, including her friends, her clothes, her hair, and her weight. Although this may seem typical of an overly protective mother, Biddy’s comportment is that of a woman bitter and angry about her past. She was raised by a woman equally as stouthearted and then married a man, Tom Cadogan, on whose seeming lack of ambition she blames her less than luxurious life. Biddy’s self-consciousness about her socioeconomic status is cleverly conveyed through her obsession with appearances. She shops for new clothes virtually everyday, she exaggerates her own family’s status while criticizing her husband’s modest background, and is fixated on Katie studying the right course at the right university and marrying the right man. Biddy is clearly trying to relive her life vicariously through