‘Aren’t memories a little like furniture of the mind?’
The fictional town of Bound, South Carolina is the setting for this thoughtful novel. Miss Judith Kratt, now aged in her seventies, lives in in her family home. Olva, her companion, hovers on the border between family and servant. The Kratts were once the most powerful family in town, but now there’s only Judith. Her parents and brother are long dead, and her younger sister Rosemarie left years ago. Judith decides to prepare an inventory of the family heirlooms, the items which have surrounded her. Judith becomes more determined to compile this inventory when she learns that her sister Rosemarie is returning. But Judith quickly finds that this is no simple task. Items have history. Some of those connections are to aspects of a past to which Judith would prefer to forget.
‘Memory and history are bound up with one another. Where does one end and the other begin?’
As Judith catalogues each item, its provenance and place in her family history, she also recalls other aspects of living in the segregated South. As Judith catalogues, her thoughts move between the past and the present. The presence of Rosemarie and that of Judith’s ‘paperboy’ Marcus and his daughter Amaryllis complicate the present, while a tragedy in June 1929 needs to be revisited.
‘Sometimes, all the things must be taken from their boxes before they can be put back again.’
In between each chapter is Judith Kratt’s slowly growing inventory. Each piece identified has a part in the story, each piece has significance. There’s a family history being told through ownership, possession and use. But there are secrets and tragedy as well. Each character has a past, a story.
‘Everything turns into something else.’
I found much to admire in this novel. Miss Judith crept up on me and, in her quiet usually understated way, took me into an unfamiliar world. Ms Bobotis has crafted a novel that which held my attention from beginning to end.
Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Tasmanian Bibliophile @Large 