Twisted Love
Crystal AM Nelson reviews Cover the Butter by Carrie Kabak
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 question
on Katie’s mind is how did she lose control of her life?
However, in following Katie from adolescence to adulthood, the
reader will wonder if she ever had control of her life. 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
Katie.
Convinced that her mother’s megalomania is merely motherly
love at its extreme, Katie concedes to Biddy’s will. Aside
from casting her dreams of becoming a caterer aside to become the
teacher Biddy never could, she also finds herself in the arms of
men who offer the type of financial security and social status her
mother craves but little else. Her first of two significant relationships
ends in betrayal while her second dissolves into a twenty-year loveless
marriage. Both are eerily reminiscent of the relationship Katie
has with her father who dotes on her with candy but yet abandons
Katie when Biddy is on a rampage. As Katie reminds the reader, Tom
is not in charge and is as susceptible to his wife’s frequent
demands, seething attacks and tantrums. Needless to say, neither
of Katie’s parents gave her the love she needed to love herself.
All this makes for a highly sympathetic character who the reader
wants to route for until the bitter end. Unfortunately, the author
does not balance Katie’s weaknesses with her strengths, of
which there are few. There are several scenes in which her stoical
responses to Biddy’s cruelty and her husband’s negligence
are both angering and annoying. But what the novel lacks in character
development, it compensates for in laugh-out-loud humor. The absurdity
of Katie’s challenges makes her altruism bearable enough to
forgive her doormat complex, especially since her inability to successfully
challenge her mother until she’s forty-four is something to
which all readers can relate.
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