“Fair to middlin’. The phrase called up a memory for me, too. Of Grandfather DeLour, Mama’s father. ‘You are only fair to middlin’,’ he had once told me solemnly as I played with my dolls on the front porch steps. ‘But your sister, she’s the finest grade there is.’ Everything in Grandfather DeLour’s life, no matter how disparate— his grandchildren, the taste of his pipe tobacco, the fitness of his horse— he assessed in the language used to grade cotton”

The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt is the first novel by American author, Andrea Bobotis. When seventy-five-year-old Miss Judith Kratt tells her coloured companion (not maid!), Olva DeLour, that she intends to make an inventory of her home in Bound, South Carolina, because it is time, several things happen: listing all the notable items in the house she has lived in all her life brings back some stirring memories; and her younger sister, Rosemarie, absent some sixty years, returns.

Back in 1929, when Miss Judith was fifteen, inventory was her main duty at the Kratt Mercantile Company (est. 1913), so this is a natural thing for her to do, and takes her back there, to the events that culminated in the shooting death of her fourteen-year-old brother, Quincy. The York Herald stated that Kratt Mercantile Company mechanic, Charlie Watson was the prime suspect for the murder but Miss Judith was there, and she knows the truth.

Not that Quincy Kratt was a sweet innocent boy. He took after his father, Daddy Kratt, a thoroughly nasty man. Even Miss Judith herself does not come across as all that likeable but perhaps the observation she makes to Olva applies to herself (and maybe Quincy too): “It is true some of these fictional heroines have challenging personalities, but defects of character are often an outcome of circumstances, are they not?”

For sixty years, Miss Judith has kept the family secrets, and now, it seems, with Rosemarie back, they are going to come out. Olva, too, feels the time has come for some revelations, but more importantly, she is determined to keep those dear to her safe.

The story is told with the tone and cadence of an imperious Southern Lady, as Miss Judith’s statements demonstrate: “Olva and I share the belief that the world reveals itself to you if you take the time to sit and wait for it. Waiting, I’ve found, is not most people’s area of expertise. Olva is a blessed aberration” and “It never ceased to astonish me that we Kratt children grew up in the same hot cocoon of childhood yet emerged as such singular organisms, barely even the same species.”

Given the era and the setting, racism is, of course, bound to rear its ugly head, although even sixty years on, the undercurrent is still there. Olva remarks “It’s a luxury to be able to write or speak in the way you want.” Bobotis has a talent for descriptive prose: “…this gave the sense of the room having been tipped on its side and shaken by a curious child.”

The narrative alternates between 1929 and 1989, with each chapter of the latter era followed by Miss Judith’s cumulative inventory list. While initially the pace is very measured, it is worth persisting for a dramatic climax involving the family’s Purdey shotgun and the heart-warming resolution. An outstanding debut novel.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark

Thankyou to NetGalley, Sourcebooks Landmark and the author, Andrea Bobotis, for the opportunity to read a digital copy of The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I was initially intrigued by the premise of the story. I was excited at the prospect of reviewing this book as I wanted to see if it was as gripping as it promised.
What I found was a novel that was well thought out and written. The characters are well defined and the scenery descriptive with timelines that were woven together really well. I really enjoyed reading this book.
Well worth a read.

The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt is a remarkable debut historical novel, one I am very pleased to refer to friends and family. In places, the prose is poetry. We already know and love Judith and Olva by other names, a different story.

With this well-written story, it is very easy to see and grudgingly understand the painfully obvious but very human necessity of each new generation to realign their world and shift their values and expectations to fit their own personal needs and the world they have to live in. But it is also not so hard to understand the difficulty this older generation has, accepting that the things we have valued all our lives are now simply viewed as burdens in the new world order. This 21st-century fact creates a mental rift very difficult for us to face, those of us who have treasured our personal totems, those memory markers that make the past come alive, those precious 'things' we consider irreplaceable.

The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt defines this problem between the generations and makes more obvious to those youngsters our need for memory totems, for all of our 'things'. I can now accept that the day I'm gone those treasures with most likely hit the auction block, and that is ok. Judith and I can let go of the partner's desk and our resentment of the new generation's warped sense of values as we take our last breath... But someone better take GOOD care of my Cast Iron. Some of those pieces came to New Mexico in covered wagons with my grandmothers, some from Oklahoma, some from Illinois. There is an unforgivable line, kids.

I received a free electronic copy of this deeply Southern novel from Netgalley, Andrea Bobotis, and Sourcebooks Landmark. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this book of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work.

The leisurely start to the book suits its southern setting and cleverly lulls the reader into thinking they are going to be reading one kind of southern novel (where racism and social inequality are treated in a superficial manner). Things soon become unsettling and then downright unpleasant through the character and actions of many of the protagonists, and the period of time the story is set in. Andrea Bobotis' writes beautifully, littering her prose with psychological dropkicks (both glorious and deeply, darkly troubling); highly recommended.

THE LAST LIST OF MISS JUDITH KRATT somehow manages to be both bleak and hopeful. It is the story of heartache and pain. And it is the story of healing and love.

This is because it's the story of a family, and families are eternally good at causing as much heartbreak as they do hope.

Miss Judith Kratt is an elderly white woman in 1989 South Carolina, making an inventory (i.e. her last list) of the valuable items in her family home. She never married and inherited what it was that her family had. She lives only with an elderly black woman named Olva, with whom she has an incredibly complicated relationship.

The story is told entirely from Miss Judith's perspective, both in 1929 (when her brother was murdered) and in 1989 (when she makes her list). Her father was the most powerful man in the town of Bound, South Carolina... building an empire on the backs of other people, manipulating them into capitulation based on the secrets his son tells him. And then his family falls apart, because they are a family in ways he does not accept.

In 1989, Miss Judith is forced to confront hard truths. She is forced to pick a side, after sixty years of desperately trying not to.

And she picks the right side, the one her father would hate.

This books is a fantastic parallel story of racism and bigotry, family and friendship, violence and hatred, love and understanding... proving that even if it doesn't seem like things have changed in sixty years, there are good things, good people even in the darkest of moments.

(I received a copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest and original review. All thoughts are my own.)

3.75/5

Honestly this review is a bit hard for me to write, but I'm going to try my best. This book was full of mystery, secrets, family drama, and a ton of racism in two different time periods in the South Carolina. While reading along, you get know the people of Bound. The good, the bad, and the evil residents all play a little part of this story. Without all of their secrets, everything may have turned out completely different for the Kratt family.

What I liked about this book:

~I loved how the author had Judith composing a list of family heirlooms as the story progresses and had a story about each item as it was added to the list. You get to know the different Kratt family members and how each one was connected to a particular heirloom. As she's composing her list she realizes the story behind every item is just as important as the item itself.

~I adored Olva and Judith's friendship. Was it unconventional? Yes, but I still enjoyed that story line. Olva is such a selfless person and was my favorite character of this book. She had a tough upbringing, but managed to survive regardless. Without their story line, I doubt I would have enjoyed this book as much as I did.

~I enjoyed the author's writing style and how descriptive it was. This story is told along two different time periods and that's one of my favorite styles for a historical fiction. While there definitely is improvement in the racial inequality, the 1989 era was still full of racist characters. Although its difficult to read I think its important to acknowledge so as a whole we can do better.

What kept me from giving it 5⭐:

~This book had a slow start and I had hard time getting into it until about a quarter of the way in. Once the mystery started unfolding I was invested and finished it one sitting.

~The characters Daddy Kratt and Quincy were morally corrupt. They were hard to read and I couldn't muster up an ounce of sympathy for either them. Many of the other characters of Bound were hard to root for and most were unlikable. I have a hard time connecting with a book with so many unfavorable characters.

Thank you Netgalley and Sourcebooks for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

A life’s history told in the form of a list. Miss Judith Kratt lives in the house she and her sister have inherited from their father, Daddy Kratt, an imperious tyrant and one time ruler of Bound, South Carolina. As the story proceeds along two timelines, the author peels back the layers of the relationships of Judith with Olva, Judith’s companion, Rosemarie, her sister, and their dead brother, Oliver. The strength of the complicated web of kinship and friendship is repeatedly tested.

Set in a dying cotton and textile town in South Carolina, Andrea Bobotis has clearly described a setting she knows well. I could picture the red clay earth and tannin brown rivers of South Carolina as I read.

This is a fabulous debut novel, and I look forward to more from this writer.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was a very intriguing book. Set in the South spanning from the 1920's through the 1980's, told through the eyes of Miss Judith Kratt, this book is multi-layered. We have the race issues in the South, the old vs. the new, the rich vs. the poor, rumor vs. fact, the conflicts go on and on. It shows how our perceptions change over time as we grow and change. It delves into family secrets and relationships while being told by an authentic Southern voice.
A very good story that leaves you thinking about your own family and town.
I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley and the publisher and voluntarily chose to review it.

I struggled to get into this book, and to identify with Judith Kratt. However, as I plodded along I began to be drawn into the mystery of it all. In the end I just felt sad for Miss Kratt but felt like her last acts changed the final arc of her life and she redeemed herself.

The Kratts were a power to reckon with in the town of Bound. Father had built up a store from nothing and one which sold everything and monopolized the sale of everything in the town. That he ended up in poor circumstances, embittered was another story.

Here we deal with Judith and her unerring love of things, the value she puts on stuff with a long ago sell by date, inventorying all that she has and reminiscing about what she has lost. She also lives in the past remembering past days, the intricacies of her Mamma's history and her involvement with a man of colour (unheard of in those times), and her brother's murder which sent her father into a spiral downwards and finally the return of the prodigal sister home.

It was a complicated story. Whether it was meant to depict a family from the South of the time I couldn't say but it was not a "nice" family that much for sure. Segregation was very much part of the scene and it was disquieting when one of the family got involved with the help. The remedy was drastic.

Disquieting story anyway.

This book was okay, but not my favorite. It was too slow, and I struggled to finish it. The story in itself was great, but I like a little more speed to a book to grab my attention!

Andrea Bobotis's debut novel is a beautifully written story of racism and dark family secrets. Fans of southern fiction and Fannie Flagg will enjoy The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt.

This work of historical fiction takes place in South Carolina during a sixty-year period (encompassing the 1920s through 1980s). Without warning, the time period weaves back and forth as the story unfolds. At the book's beginning, Judith and Olva are relaxing in their sunroom, enjoying the warmth. There is a sense of old age, and a kind of quiet, loving relationship between these two elderly woman. They share a long history together. Olva is thoughtful, speaks carefully, and is always offering to do things for Judith. It slowly becomes a revelation that Olva is a woman of color. A newspaper report that Judith Kratt's only brother Quincy was murdered at the age of 14 in 1929 is the first piece of information thrust at the reader. The book will take you on a journey from the past to the present to slowly unravel the mystery of who killed Quincy, and also to uncover family secrets.

But as the book begins, Judith has decided that she wants to make an accounting of various valuables owned by the Kratt family. As each chapter ends, items are diligently listed that Judith has spoken about during those pages. When you get to the final chapter, the list will be long and complete. Judith's family home is very important to her, and these family heirlooms are treasures with stories to tell.

Daddy Kratt ran a successful cotton gin business and eventually opened the Kratt Mercantile Company, a glittering, imposing multi-floored store that even had elevators. Judith was trusted to take inventory and on opening day she took endless store visitors on tours of the facility. However, Daddy Kratt was a ruthless businessman and an abusive, cold-hearted father. Son Quincy, all of 14 years old, would gather information on various people in the (fictional) town of Bound, South Carolina to use against them in order to curry favor with his father. These would serve to improve the Kratt family's business interests by blackmailing enemies. In 1989 we know that the store did not survive, so that is another story to tell.

The book centers heavily on issues of race relations, the depressed state of a once thriving town, a disfunctional family, and closely held family secrets. The character of the murdered boy Quincy was so despicable that I was devoid of any sympathy, or even in much interest as to who killed him. Ditto for the father Daddy Kratt. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The core relationship that appealed to me most was that of Judith and Olva, and the saving grace of these characters carried my middling interest to the book's conclusion.

3 1/2 ⭐️‘S
While a well written family drama, but the layers are peeled ever so slowly as dark family secrets emerge. Race is a focal point of the story and Bobotis handles it well. I found the story much too depressing and slow for my liking and never really reached the connection I had hoped for.

Like holding a piece of dark chocolate on your tongue and luxuriating in the velvet texture “The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt” tasted rich and intriguing. The narrator, Miss Judith, starts her story on the day of her “family’s misfortune”. She introduces us to her family members and acquaintances and describes their complexities so there is no mistaking the heroes from the villains. I understood and hated everyone’s nemesis, Daddy Kratt, with his mercurial, nasty, violent, bigoted nature. I felt in equal measure sympathy and disgust for Quincy, the progeny, who is willing to spy and betray anyone to curry favor with his father to what end I was left wondering. He was drafted as the perfect foil to wreak the havoc that was about to ensue.

Set in Bound, South Carolina in 1929, this is the best of southern literature, told with the syrupy descriptions that while wordy never feel burdensome. Bobotis’ description of a button is mesmerizing, the color of the sky so familiar, even the violent acts of flinging trays of shortcakes from the table to the floor brings the horrible mess into clear focus. She doesn’t blanch from describing the racist behavior and the realities of southern discrimination in the 1930’s. It is all part of the story which is well told.

Miss Judith’s list continues to grow with the pages and her descriptions of those things which are owned by the Kratt family bind the players together. She is not one to deeply question the history of the family as she has been at its center and been its keeper for sixty years. The ultimate question she poses is not so much a question of what you own, but whether you own your life or does it own you?

I loved this book and thank NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for a copy.

This is an ambitious book, and there are times when the writing is brilliant, yet this fell short for me.

There is a great plot line in here - exploring hidden family affairs and murders, the relationship with race that communities in the Deep South of America have, the difficulties of growing old with people that have always known you too well. Had the book been structured differently perhaps in would have found this riveting, but as it was I found it painfully slow. Even in scenes where there is a lot going on we are treated to reminiscing about the history of objects....it just didn't work for me.

I also strongly disliked Judith. I think that was the point but I also think that she was supposed to unravel before our eyes over the course of the book and you are intended to come to like her. I just found her selfish.

“We will choose what we take with us.”

This thunderous debut by Andrea Bobotis bears a small resemblance to the work of Elizabeth Strout and the late Harper Lee. Issues of race and menacing family secrets simmer beneath the surface of this narrative like some otherworldly being biding its time in the swamp, till at last it rises and we must look at it.

As the story commences, Judith, who is quite elderly, is ready to take inventory. Her family home, all six thousand square feet of it, is jammed full of heirlooms, and each is fraught with history. The year is 1989, but as Judith examines one heirloom and then another, she takes us back to the period just before the stock market crashes, back when she was young and her parents and brother were still alive.

I have to confess that the first time I picked up this story—free to me, thanks to Net Galley and Sourcebooks Landmark—I thought, Huh. A boring old lady and her stuff. Pub date’s a ways off, so let’s put this one on the bottom of the pile. Of course, I picked it up again later. I read a bit farther this time and found I was acutely uncomfortable; I told myself I had to read it because I had requested the galley, but then I didn’t for awhile.

But like Judith, I pride myself on being reliable, so toward the end of June I squared my shoulders and opened the book. An hour later my jaw was on the floor and my husband was avoiding me, because he knew if he got too close I would start reading out loud. If you were to show up right now I’d do the same to you. I genuinely believe this novel and the characters and social issues they’re steeped in is one for our time.

Judith is the eldest of the Kratt children; her companion, Olva, lives with her, but her status is undetermined and remains that way far into the book. Part of the time she appears to be a live-in servant, hopping up whenever Judith wants a cup of tea or a blanket; at other times the two of them sit on the porch together and watch the world go by as if they were sisters or good friends. We know that they grew up together and share a history as well as the trauma of growing up with the vicious, unpredictable Daddy Kratt, the wealthiest man in Bound at the time.

As layer after layer is peeled back, using the household treasures that are inventoried as a framework of sorts, we see the gratuitous cruelty that was part of both women’s daily existence as children. Kratt can be generous at times, and yet at others—with increasing frequency—he is vicious and sadistic. We see the responses his unpredictable fury brings out of Judith as a child, her younger brother Quincy, who’s a chip off the old block, and their younger sister, Rosemarie. Kratt can ruin someone’s entire life purely on whim and never feel the slightest regret. He likes to watch. The entire town fears him.

Now he’s gone, and here we are. Judith acknowledges that her social skills are stunted, and she never knows what to say or do to smooth a difficult situation. She was never a pretty girl, and she has never married. We can also see that she is solipsistic, insensitive to the feelings of others, and at times just straight-up mean, but she doesn’t see herself that way, because she measures herself against her late parents. Judith is nowhere near as nasty as her daddy was; she has never permitted herself to be broken by him, as her mother was. So Judith tends to let herself off the hook lightly. As she remembers back over the years the cataclysmic events that have taken place around her—or in some cases, because of her—her overall tone is self-congratulatory.
But her little sister, who is also an old lady now, returns to the family manse, and that overturns the apple cart in a big way. How dare Rosemarie run out and leave Judith to contend with that awful man but now come back to claim her birthright? Isn’t that right, Olva?

Olva just smiles.

In fact, this story is every bit as much about Olva as it is about Judith. . Every single one of these women is sitting on secrets; every one of them has a different story to tell. Every new revelation brings additional questions to mind, so that although this is not a mystery or a thriller, I cannot stand to put it down. I generally like to flop on my bed at night and read before I go to sleep, but I can’t do that with this book. I’d climb under the covers; open the book; read a little ways and then sit bolt upright. Eventually I realized that this cannot be the bedtime story. (It occurs to me just now that retelling one or another portion of this story in the voice of one of the characters not heard from would make a great creative writing assignment related to point of view.)

What Bobotis has done here is masterful. She begins with an old, wealthy white woman and yet develops her, and I cannot think of even a dozen books where that has been accomplished in a believable way in literature; once we get old, that’s pretty much who we are going to be. But the elderly Judith at the story’s end is a better person than the elderly Judith at the outset. And as if that weren’t enough, she also develops Olva, the dark-skinned elderly companion that seems to us, at the beginning, to be a live-in servant or nurse of some sort. But however circumspect Olva has been—a prerequisite for an African-American that wants to stay alive in the American South in the past and at times, maybe the present—Olva does in fact have some things to say. It is Rosemarie’s return that makes this possible.

This isn’t necessarily a fun novel to read, and yet the skill with which it is rendered is a beautiful thing in and of itself. I believed every one of these characters, those within this pathologically corrupt family and those around it. I suspect that the formidably talented Bobotis could pluck any one of these characters and create a sequel just as remarkable. This writer is going to be around for a long, long time, and as for me? I’m ready to read whatever she comes up with next.

Highly recommended.

Judith Kratt is doing an inventory of her family's worldly possessions, With each item comes a host of memories and pain. Family secrets are heavy, and the return of Rosemary, Judith's sister, after 60 years, threatens to bring those secrets to light.

This book is like a warm afternoon, laying in a hammock. The writing is lush and slow-moving, like a honey in a jar. The air is thick with tension.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

EXCERPT: I examined the postcard. Perhaps I thought slipping it in the draw would forestall its news. Or prevent Olva from seeing the connection between it and my new need for an inventory. More than anyone, she should understand the necessity of chronicling our family's history. It is prudent, after all, to keep a record of how one sees things, especially when others perceive matters so differently. On the desk is a letter opener made of cut glass that we played with as children; we marveled at how, held to the window, it produced a different color for each of us. And isn't that how memory works too?

I studied the postcard again. Addressed to me, it pictured a majestic building. The architecture looked Greek revival. The caption across the top of the postcard read 'Montgomery, Alabama' and across the bottom 'The First Capital of the Confederate of the United States 1861.' The whole bottom line had been crossed through with a red ballpoint, as though history could be changed with the stroke of a pen.

'Olva -'

But she was gone. I flipped over the postcard, which was unsigned. But I had known from the moment I saw it. It was unmistakably my sister's hand, a muddle of agitated letters. The message had been scrawled off, with the last word sitting a bit apart from the others, as if she had been in the process of getting up from her chair when she wrote it. 'Sister, I am coming home.'

I stood with the postcard held aloft in my hand, as if aiming it at something. Or someone. It is important to know that Rosemarie has never been bound by any sense of responsibility to our family. You see, Quincy gathered secrets, but Rosemarie's impulse was to scatter them to the wind. And m sister believes I killed Quincy.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Some bury their secrets close to home. Others scatter them to the wind and hope they land somewhere far away.

Judith Kratt inherited all the Kratt family had to offer—the pie safe, the copper clock, the murder no one talks about. She knows it's high time to make an inventory of her household and its valuables, but she finds that cataloging the family belongings—as well as their misfortunes—won't contain her family's secrets, not when her wayward sister suddenly returns, determined to expose skeletons the Kratts had hoped to take to their graves.

Interweaving the present with chilling flashbacks from one fateful evening in 1929, Judith pieces together the influence of her family on their small South Carolina cotton town, learning that the devastating effects of dark family secrets can last a lifetime and beyond.

MY THOUGHTS: This is a wonderful book, filled with an air of mystery, chronicling the days of an era we can only image, and the beginning of the move towards racial equality. It is the sort of book you should read reclined on a lounger under a tree in the heat of summer with an iced tea at hand. It is deliciously and darkly southern to its last full stop.

The characters are richly portrayed, and equally as richly described. 'He was a boorish man whose two storied face had extra square footage on his forehead - square footage that, based on his ruthlessness in all business matters, he would probably be willing to sell off in hard times.'

While I found the main character, Judith, hard to relate to (she is very 'buttoned-up'), I could sympathise with her. She has tried to hang on to her way of life in a changing world, and succeeded up to a point, aided and abetted by her faithful companion Olva. That point is the reappearance of her younger sister Rosemarie, who Judith believes to have spent her life fleeing from things, and whom she has not seen since the death of their brother Quincy.

The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt is an absorbing read. It is a cinematic read. It is atmospheric, and as delicious as a tub of your favorite ice-cream. 4.5*

THE AUTHOR: A native of South Carolina, Andrea holds a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Virginia. She lives with her family in Denver, Colorado, where she teaches creative writing to youth at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She also teaches yoga and is a national parks geek.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Source Books, Landmark, via Netgalley, for providing a digital ARC of The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the 'about' page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system.

This review and others are also published on my webpage sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

Judith, a women in her late 70's, has lived in Bound, SC for her entire life. The book takes place in the present, but there are flashbacks to a horrifying event from the 1920's which changed her life forever. This debut novel follows the classic Southern Gothic tradition; it reminded me of two favorites in this genre: Dollbaby by Laura McNeal and The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson.