The Last Suppers

The Last Suppers is a 2017 Mandy Mikulencak Kensington publication.

A thought provoking, complex, and moving story-

Ginny works at Louisiana’s Greenmount State Penitentiary during the 1950’s as a prison cook. She has started a program for the death row inmates where she offers to cook them anything they desire for their ‘last meal.'

Ginny has a very complicated past which, once it is revealed, will explain her deep devotion to her job, which has wrought complications between her mother, Miriam, and her lover, Roscoe, who just so happens to be the prison warden.

Roscoe and Ginny try to keep their relationship a secret, along with Ginny’s offer to cook for the worst of the worst inmates, but the entire balancing act soon begins to show more topple over when shocking revelations come to light regarding the death of Ginny’s father, many years ago.

I don’t know what I was expecting from this book, but this certainly wasn’t it. Wow. I confess I’m feeling a bit stunned by this novel.

The story has the potential to reach a broad audience because it is more than just historical fiction. It is also a family drama and a mystery, with a controversial love story, featuring the importance of food -the memories and comfort it can evoke- rounding things out.

The story touches on a myriad of topics, such as racial tensions, defying social norms, the death penalty, and compassion for the families of death row inmates, just to name a few.

Ginny’s psychological need to provide these meals harkens back to a hideous decision her mother made, and the deep impact it has on Ginny in her adult life, including her relationship with Roscoe.

This is a heartbreaking story that juxtapositions the best and worst of humanity, zeroing in on the blurred lines between prisoners and their families, who also suffer the intense pain of losing a loved one and the stigma they live with.

While it may seem that Ginny is offering cold-blooded murderers generosity he certainly does not deserve, I believe in her heart, it was just as much about offering a bit of comfort to the inmates’ family, as well as assuaging her own guilt.

But, at the heart of the story is the role food plays in our lives, under the best and the very worst of times. It’s not so much about feeding the body as it is about feeding the spirit, and offering solace for the soul.

In so many ways this book broke my heart, but it was also inspirational in a way, and shows the flip side the coin, allowing me to view things from an angle I have rarely considered.

Southern fiction is a favorite of mine, as is historical fiction, so these factors added the right atmosphere for such an original and beautifully written book.

As an added bonus, the author added a few of the recipes for the food mentioned in the book, which included some old southern dishes many people have probably never heard of. I make my own Chow Chow, by the way, but the recipe here was much more involved than anything I’ve ever attempted, which I found very interesting.

This story will stick with me for a long time to come. I recommend it to historical fiction fans, but I think it's a story that will resonate with anyone who appreciates good storytelling. show less

4.5 stars.

Set during the 1950s,The Last Suppers by Mandy Mikulencak is an absolutely riveting novel about a young woman who is a cook at a Louisiana prison.

Ginny Polk works in the kitchen of the same prison her murdered father once worked as a guard. She is also romantically involved with her father's best friend, Roscoe Simmons, who is now the prison warden. Very much ahead of her time, Ginny is uninterested in marrying her much older lover since it would mean giving up her job in the prison kitchen. In another divergence from a typical white woman in the deep South, she considers her much older African American co-worker, Dot, to be her best friend and surrogate mother. While Ginny loves her job, her vocation lies in the meals she show more prepares for prisoners who are about to be put to death for their crimes. Although she never loses sight the horrific crimes these men have been convicted of committing, Ginny also feels they deserve one last act of compassion before they go to the electric chair.

Ginny is quite contemplative as she tries to understand what motivates her to take such care with the death row inmates' last meal. She is well aware that her traumatic childhood experiences are a factor in her devotion to ensuring their prisoners last supper has meaning. This curiosity is the catalyst that begins her quest to find answers to questions that have long troubled her, but it is a shocking discovery about her beloved father that jeopardizes everything she holds dear.

As she reminisces about her larger than life, garrulous father, Ginny slowly starts to understand that he had also had a dark side. Roscoe has tried to protect her from the truth about the man she idolizes but she has no choice but face the fact that her father also had a cruel streak. After she stumbles onto proof that shatters her illusions about him, Ginny sets out to right a horrific wrong, but she inadvertently uncovers the stunning truth about what happened the night of her father's murder.

The Last Suppers is starkly compelling novel that accurately depicts many of the issues of the time period including race relations and the deplorable conditions at the prison. Ginny is an empathetic young woman who is sometimes a little naive and impulsive, but her heart is always in the right place. With a multi-layered, richly developed and meticulously researched storyline, Mandy Mikulencak's debut is poignant, through-provoking and ultimately, redemptive. show less

The Last Suppers is a profoundly emotional tale centered around a woman far ahead of her time. Ginny is not the typical southern woman of the 1950s. Rather than settling into marriage, where she'd take care of the home and raise children, she remains single, independent, and fiery in temperament. She lives and works in a man's world, yet she refuses to be blindly submissive.

Ginny also refuses to follow the status quo of ingrained southern racism. She is comfortable with black people and makes no apologies for her friendships.

Within this backdrop of women's roles and racism we have the prison setting, with Ginny's desperate attempts to give death row inmates one last taste of home before they're put to death. We also have a sometimes show more turbulent romance and secrets that could destroy people's lives.

Mandy Mikulencak's writing style has a beautiful, literary quality. The characters are so fully developed that they could easily be real people. Equally vivid is the setting, which adds layers of complexity to this powerful story.

*The publisher provided me with an advance copy, via Amazon Vine, in exchange for my honest review.* show less

I think that most of us are attracted to controversial themes. After all, what is reading if not an opportunity to take a deeper look into issues that have shaped the world we live in? The issue of death penalty is one of the most discussed and divisive with strong opinions both in favour of and against this practice. I won’t bore you with my views on the matter, nor is it anyone’s business after all. However, this was the main reason The Last Suppers attracted my attention. The setting of New Orleans and the premise of the last supper before the execution of the convicted were factors that increased my curiosity. As it is, The Last Suppers was a rather interesting story with much potential but the writing and the overdone melodrama show more didn’t meet my personal standards and prevented me from connecting to the plot and to the characters.

The story takes place in New Orleans, primarily during the 50s although we are momentarily transferred to the 30s and the 40s to witness events that are strongly connected to the present narrative. Everything is seen through the eyes of Ginny, a young woman with a troubled past and a no less complicated present. Her work is one that few would envy. She is a cook in Greenmount State Penitentiary. Ginny has decided on a peculiar life mission. She prepares the last meals of those who are about to meet the justified or unjustified end. She wants to give them one last sweet memory by reminding them of beloved recipes, of happier moments at home with their families. Whether they deserve it or not is a continuous point of discussion throughout the novel. Continuous to the point of repetition but more on that later. The death of her father has been haunting her for most of her life and her relationship with his best friends doesn’t make things easier.

So what did I like in this novel? First of all, the depiction of the era and the unique atmosphere of New Orleans are remarkable. The sultry days and nights, the harsh daily life are vivid and I was transported there from the get-go. Seen as a Historical Novel, the writer did a marvelous job there. The themes she tackles are varied, difficult and very demanding. The loss of a parent at a young age, the emotional distance between a mother and a daughter, the complicated relationship with an older man are themes related to the personal life of the characters. And then, we have the important social background of the era. The discrimination between residents of the same city, the nightmare of the Ku Klux Klan, the social narrow-mindedness regarding women, the complicated issue of the death penalty and the convicted men’s former life provide plenty of material for an emotional and interesting discussion.

In my opinion, the problem is that the writing isn’t intense enough to communicate everything properly. I don’t know what this novel aspired to be. A Historical Fiction novel? A social critique against discriminations of any kind? A romance? All these together? Make of it what you will but there were times when I thought I was reading a sappy, melodramatic romance, full of hystericals and unrealistic, stale interactions. I’m not sure whether I am making any sense but in my opinion, the dialogue between the characters was sub-par as if it had sprung out of a low-quality movie. And the sad thing is that in those moments, the writing should have been rich in gravity and tension. The same complaint applies to the characters. Everyone -with the possible exception of Dot- seemed either naive or neurotic. Unengaging, blunt, frightfully unoriginal. Even Dot seemed a character that have seen in most examples of Southern Literature. Although Ginny started out quite well, she quickly became someone who couldn’t see the obvious implications of her questionable actions. Too much hysterics, sorry...This kind of literature isn’t for me. And I had seen the conclusion coming before I reached the halfway mark of the novel so no surprises there…

The most ‘’correct’’ personal rating for this novel would have been 2 stars. However, I am fully aware that my tastes and standards are quite weird. When I occupy my time with dark, difficult themes, I expect the writing to reflect the situations, well, ‘’darkly’’. I want realism, not a romantic ‘’will she, won’t she’’. In addition, I know that anything approaching sappy romance is a lost cause with me so I’d hate to be unjust because of my cold heart. There are many beloved GR friends who loved The Last Suppers. It just wasn't my cup of tea. In my eyes, it was a wasted opportunity.

Many thanks to Kensington Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange of an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com show less

The Last Suppers by Mandy Mikulencak

Dark, twisted, emotionally challenging this is a story of people caught up in life…and death.

The setting of this story is Greenmount Penitentiary in Louisiana – a fictitious place brought to life through the excellent writing of the author.

The period of time ranges from the late 1920’s through the early 1960’s.

The issues/topics included are many and each one seems to impact another much as dominoes falling one after another. Family, abuse, lies, KKK, race, friendship, love, belonging, death, trauma, psychological issues, giving, caring, pain…and so much more.

The main characters are Roscoe Simms – warden and Ginny Polk – penitentiary head cook.

Peripheral/supporting characters include: show more Dot (cook’s assistant), Miriam (Ginny’s mother), Joe (Ginny’s father) various guards at the penitentiary and the prisoners being executed and the families of those prisoners.

The blurb for this book gives an idea of what the book might be about but the story is so much more than the blurb. The gradual unfolding of the backstories makes each character bigger and more complex than first expected with each page read and left me pondering and wishing that for most things could have been radically different while also explaining why the story needed to progress as it did.

I am still pondering and thinking and wishing that the characters had things easier BUT I am also thankful to have met and become acquainted with each one of them as they will remain with me for quite some time. This is a book that will not disappear from my mind quickly. It will stick and in sticking do what I like a book to do…make me care and share and think and grow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books-A John Scognamiglio Book for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars show less

Completed riveted by this book from start to finish. Mikulencak is a true artist in that she made a story set in 1950s Louisiana about a prison cook who feeds the last meal to men on death row as interesting and enthralling as any book I've ever read.

Ginny Polk is in charge of the kitchen at a prison in Louisiana in the early 50s. It's a rough place to work but she grew up there because her late father was a guard and they had housing provided. Ginny is a very compassionate woman and one of her personal goals is to fix the last meal of the prisoners who are being put to death. She talks to them or their family before the last meal to find out what they really want for this final meal. The executions all take a large toll on Ginny because her mother made her witness the execution of the man who killed her father when she was only 8. Her early life could have made Ginny into a hard person but instead she is strong and independent much to the dismay of the prison board who doesn't like show more the special dinners that she makes for the condemned men.

Truth, justice, mercy—none of these are as simple as Ginny once believed. And the most shocking crimes may not be the ones committed out of anger or greed, but the sacrifices we make for love.

This is a wonderful book about tough subjects but it is well balanced by Ginny and her attitudes toward the prisoners. She is very well written and a character that I won't soon forget.

Thanks to the author for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own. show less