Carrie Kabak
Author of Cover the Butter
About the Author
Image credit: Carrie Kabak
Works by Carrie Kabak
Associated Works
For Keeps: Women Tell the Truth About Their Bodies, Growing Older, and Acceptance (2007) — Contributor — 30 copies, 2 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Gender
- female
- Short biography
- Carrie Kabak is the author of Shibby Magee: An Irish Tragicomedy and Cover the Butter (Penguin Random House), an Independent Booksellers' Pick, AudioFile Earphones Award winner, and Quill Award nominee. Her work has also appeared in anthologies published by Seal Press, Simon & Schuster, Atria Books, She Writes Press, and North Atlantic Books.
An Irish and British citizen living in Missouri, Carrie writes character-driven fiction exploring family, identity, belonging, and the resilience of the human spirit. Shibby Magee, set on the edge of Ireland's Traveller (Mincéir) community, was featured in Publishers Weekly's Monthly Spotlight and has been praised for its warmth, humor, and emotional depth. - Birthplace
- UK
- Places of residence
- Kansas City, Missouri, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Members
Reviews
Every so often you come across a book that completely takes hold of you, and Shibby Magee by Carrie Kabak did exactly that for me. I sank into this story and genuinely could not put it down. It pulled me into its world from the very beginning and never let go.
Carrie Kabak has a remarkable gift for voice. She is a master of eye dialect and colloquial language, creating characters and dialogue that feel deeply rooted in place and culture. I found myself looking up words and expressions show more throughout the book, but I loved every minute of it. I adore books that transport me into the wonder and richness of other geographical regions and ways of life. There is something special about stepping into a world that feels unfamiliar at first and then slowly becomes a place you settle into and understand. I soaked it all up.
What makes Shibby Magee especially memorable is the glimpse it offers into the world of Irish Travelers. The story feels immersive and layered, opening a window into traditions, community, identity, and ways of life that many readers may know little about. Kabak creates characters who feel beautifully human, carrying their burdens, loyalties, and longings with them. Reading it, I found myself thinking of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers and its gathering of misfits and outsiders. While the stories are entirely different, I felt echoes of similar themes of isolation, class, race, and what it means to live on the margins while still searching for connection, understanding, and a place to belong.
At its heart, this is also a powerful story about sisterhood and the bonds between women. The relationships feel real, messy, fierce, and deeply moving. There is loyalty, strength, heartbreak, and love woven through these connections, and those threads stayed with me long after I finished the final page.
Some books entertain you, and some books settle into your soul. Shibby Magee did the latter for me. It completely captivated me and left a lasting mark. I already know this is a book I will think about for a very long time. show less
Carrie Kabak has a remarkable gift for voice. She is a master of eye dialect and colloquial language, creating characters and dialogue that feel deeply rooted in place and culture. I found myself looking up words and expressions show more throughout the book, but I loved every minute of it. I adore books that transport me into the wonder and richness of other geographical regions and ways of life. There is something special about stepping into a world that feels unfamiliar at first and then slowly becomes a place you settle into and understand. I soaked it all up.
What makes Shibby Magee especially memorable is the glimpse it offers into the world of Irish Travelers. The story feels immersive and layered, opening a window into traditions, community, identity, and ways of life that many readers may know little about. Kabak creates characters who feel beautifully human, carrying their burdens, loyalties, and longings with them. Reading it, I found myself thinking of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers and its gathering of misfits and outsiders. While the stories are entirely different, I felt echoes of similar themes of isolation, class, race, and what it means to live on the margins while still searching for connection, understanding, and a place to belong.
At its heart, this is also a powerful story about sisterhood and the bonds between women. The relationships feel real, messy, fierce, and deeply moving. There is loyalty, strength, heartbreak, and love woven through these connections, and those threads stayed with me long after I finished the final page.
Some books entertain you, and some books settle into your soul. Shibby Magee did the latter for me. It completely captivated me and left a lasting mark. I already know this is a book I will think about for a very long time. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
When first we meet Kate Fanshaw, she's a woman with one broken spirit. Back from a weekend trip with her aloof and inconsiderate husband, Rodney, she finds her lovely English home in a shambles -- and all at the hands of her teenage son, Charlie. Bottles are strewn about; urine puddles on the floor. And after a disastrous weekend spent trying to "reconnect" with her boorish husband, Kate has definitely had it.
We know where she is now.
Just not how she got there.
Carrie Kabak's Cover The Butter show more is the story of one woman's coming-of-age: the twists, turns and broken relationships that brought her to that wrecked kitchen in what was once her marital home. We're introduced to her controlling and manipulative mother, Biddy; her mousy but attentive father, Tom; her Scottish grandparents, the true heroes of this story, Mamgu and Griff; and Kate's best friends from school, Moira and Ingrid. We travel back in time to when Kate was a teen herself, standing complacently as Biddy ordered her about. Trying to please her mother. Trying to get her mother's attention.
Kabak's novel is, first and foremost, an exploration of motherhood -- and what it means to be a mother and a daughter. And Biddy? Well, she isn't a very good one. The entire length of the book, Biddy dangles her approval over Kate's head like a balloon: visible but always out of reach. Unattainable. It's not until she meets Rodney -- dependable, boring, from-good-stock Rodney -- that Biddy finally begins to show her only child some approval. And Kate craves it like a drug.
I started Cover The Butter over the weekend and devoured it quickly, soaking up as many passages at a time as I could. Highly readable and with excellent voice and flow, Kabak's writing was engaging, entertaining and unique. Told entirely from Kate's perspective, I really felt like I got to know our heroine -- and could relate to her struggles to please everyone in the world but herself. When her mother dismisses her dreams of baking and canning preserves, she banishes them, too. When Rodney tells her he'd prefer her to stay home with the baby, building her life up within the home, she does.
On the surface, it seems as though Kate allows her parents, friends and boyfriends to control her -- and as we make our way through the decades of her life, that definitely seems to be the case. It's not until she finally gives herself permission to displease her parents and live for herself that she's free. And it takes many years to get there, yes, but get there she does. I've read reviews expressing frustration and total annoyance at Kate's door-mat-ness, and I understand where readers are coming from -- but for me? It was all very true to character. After a lifetime of being molded by her mother's talons, Kate wasn't going to suddenly kick off her shackles and tell them all to get bent. What child doesn't search for love and affection from a parent? And hurt when they don't receive it?
The book's strength, for me, came from Kate herself. It was fascinating to read about a woman's entire life -- or, well, the life she's lived to date. Sprinkled with plenty of humor and anecdotes, Cover The Butter had a serious side, too, and dealt with plenty of growing-up issues. But for as dense as that sounds, the story flew by in Kabak's capable hands. By the time I'd reached the story's denouement, I was shocked. Over so soon?
Fans of women's fiction and/or British fiction might find this a warm, interesting and entertaining read that hasn't garnered much attention. And if you head into the novel knowing Kate lives most of her life on someone else's timeframe, you'll appreciate her a little better. And hopefully cheer a little louder when she's finally released from those bonds. show less
We know where she is now.
Just not how she got there.
Carrie Kabak's Cover The Butter show more is the story of one woman's coming-of-age: the twists, turns and broken relationships that brought her to that wrecked kitchen in what was once her marital home. We're introduced to her controlling and manipulative mother, Biddy; her mousy but attentive father, Tom; her Scottish grandparents, the true heroes of this story, Mamgu and Griff; and Kate's best friends from school, Moira and Ingrid. We travel back in time to when Kate was a teen herself, standing complacently as Biddy ordered her about. Trying to please her mother. Trying to get her mother's attention.
Kabak's novel is, first and foremost, an exploration of motherhood -- and what it means to be a mother and a daughter. And Biddy? Well, she isn't a very good one. The entire length of the book, Biddy dangles her approval over Kate's head like a balloon: visible but always out of reach. Unattainable. It's not until she meets Rodney -- dependable, boring, from-good-stock Rodney -- that Biddy finally begins to show her only child some approval. And Kate craves it like a drug.
I started Cover The Butter over the weekend and devoured it quickly, soaking up as many passages at a time as I could. Highly readable and with excellent voice and flow, Kabak's writing was engaging, entertaining and unique. Told entirely from Kate's perspective, I really felt like I got to know our heroine -- and could relate to her struggles to please everyone in the world but herself. When her mother dismisses her dreams of baking and canning preserves, she banishes them, too. When Rodney tells her he'd prefer her to stay home with the baby, building her life up within the home, she does.
On the surface, it seems as though Kate allows her parents, friends and boyfriends to control her -- and as we make our way through the decades of her life, that definitely seems to be the case. It's not until she finally gives herself permission to displease her parents and live for herself that she's free. And it takes many years to get there, yes, but get there she does. I've read reviews expressing frustration and total annoyance at Kate's door-mat-ness, and I understand where readers are coming from -- but for me? It was all very true to character. After a lifetime of being molded by her mother's talons, Kate wasn't going to suddenly kick off her shackles and tell them all to get bent. What child doesn't search for love and affection from a parent? And hurt when they don't receive it?
The book's strength, for me, came from Kate herself. It was fascinating to read about a woman's entire life -- or, well, the life she's lived to date. Sprinkled with plenty of humor and anecdotes, Cover The Butter had a serious side, too, and dealt with plenty of growing-up issues. But for as dense as that sounds, the story flew by in Kabak's capable hands. By the time I'd reached the story's denouement, I was shocked. Over so soon?
Fans of women's fiction and/or British fiction might find this a warm, interesting and entertaining read that hasn't garnered much attention. And if you head into the novel knowing Kate lives most of her life on someone else's timeframe, you'll appreciate her a little better. And hopefully cheer a little louder when she's finally released from those bonds. show less
This is the story of Kate, a doormat. Most of her life is spent under her mother's thumb in some way or another, and that need for approval from the one person in her life least willing to give it forces Kate into a slew of bad decisions throughout her life. That's not to say this book is all depressing, though sometimes it was a bit frustrating to see Kate putting up with such poor treatment. There are also parts that are touching, like Kate's eternally devoted grandparents, and parts that show more are hilarious, like her lovingly (and brutally) honest friends. Almost all the characters are so detailed I could hear them in my head. In all, it's a pretty good depiction of how a woman can let her life get so far off track - and, happily, how she can get it back on again. show less
I enjoyed Shibby Magee. Just as I was wondering where the childhood part of Shibby and her twin sister Dorahwas going, my attention was again caught as the story shifted back to their adult lives. So much trauma from their childhood only Shibby seems to carry, she finally realises what love and family really is. Well developed characters keep the reader engaged.
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 3
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 96
- Popularity
- #196,088
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 12
- ISBNs
- 12
- Languages
- 1
- Favorited
- 1
