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    The Mouse-Proof Kitchen: A Novel
    The Mouse-Proof Kitchen: A Novel
    The Mouse-Proof Kitchen: A Novel
    Ebook386 pages5 hours

    The Mouse-Proof Kitchen: A Novel

    By Saira Shah

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    “A journey of the heart…Shah writes with sensuous passion” (The New York Times Book Review).

    When Anna, a chef by profession, discovers she’s pregnant, she prepares to leave dreary London behind and move to idyllic Provence, France, with her husband, Tobias, and her lovable baby-to-be. But she’s suddenly forced to reevaluate her dreams when their baby is born less than perfect. Little do Anna and Tobias know that the change in plans sparked by Freya’s birth is the beginning of an incredible journey of the heart. Along the way, they discover that there truly is no such thing as a mouse-proof kitchen, and though life sometimes gets a little messy, it’s the messy bits that give it meaning.

    The couple and their new daughter end up in a vermin-infested farmhouse in a remote town in France—far from the mansion in Provence they’d originally imagined. Their rickety home is falling down around them, the village is involved in a decades-old trauma, and even the charms of the region’s lavender fields and a budding romance between two of their young neighbors can’t distract from the fact that Freya’s hospital stays are becoming frighteningly frequent. Anna must draw on reserves of strength she never knew she had just to keep going from day to day. But will it be enough to keep her family together—and her daughter safe?

    Told with “the most pitch-perfect, radiant prose” (New York Times bestselling author Marisa de los Santos), The Mouse-Proof Kitchen is a moving and thought-provoking story about how the best parts of life are often the most complicated.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtria/Emily Bestler Books
    Release dateJul 2, 2013
    ISBN9781476705682
    The Mouse-Proof Kitchen: A Novel
    Author

    Saira Shah

    Saira Shah has won three Emmys for her films Unholy War, Beneath the Veil, and Death in Gaza. She has also written an autobiography, The Storyteller’s Daughter. Saira retired from filmmaking in 2003 and divides her time between the UK and France.

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    Reviews for The Mouse-Proof Kitchen

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      This is one of those books I picked up thinking I would just browse it, not expecting much. But the story caught me up and I found it a great read. Anna, a gourmet chef, has her life all planned out. She and her husband, Tobias, will have their first child, a girl named Freya, and move to the south of France, where she will teach in a cooking school and Tobias will do...something. However, Freya is born with serious disabilities.Anna and Tobias cannot afford a house in Provence and end up moving to a decrepit, rat infested farmhouse in the north of France. Throughout the story, Anna and Tobias struggle with their desires to follow their own dreams and their alternating love for Freya and the frustration and fear her health issues brings. It turns out nothing in life is simple and every decision, no matter how "right" it "feels" comes with its own lost opportunities and sacrifices. Beautifully written without being overly sentimental, this book will ring true to any parent who has ever wondered how to weigh their own desires and dreams against their obligations to their children.
    • 2/5
      I wasn't the biggest fan of this book. I think that it was generally well-written and descriptive, but I had a hard time liking any of the characters which is why I don't think it held my attention very well. To me the relationships between the characters, with the exception of the one between the protaganist and her mother, seemed thin as well which made it hard for me to care about what happened to them.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book. It was not an emotionally easy read, but the author dealt realistically and authentically with how (I believe) parents of a special needs child may react to learning how their lives will change. The descriptions of French life and the home the main characters purchase in France was well done and evocative.
    • 5/5
      heartwarming story. I enjoyed and sympathized with the characters admiring their choices in life.
    • 4/5
      3.5
    • 5/5
      An excellent choice for book clubs.This book was written from the heart by an author who, herself, has a severely disabled child and similarly, made the decision to move to France. While a lot of the narrative is not autobiographical, it also didn't feel so much like a novel. The emotions and reactions were too true, too heartfelt to be simply fiction and it wasn't until I realised the author's history that I could make sense of it.I was blown away but the brutal honesty of trying to adjust your life to the shock and implications of raising a child who had absolutely no hope of living an independent life, never to walk, talk, or feed herself.Some of the characters were a bit 'off the wall'. Lizzy, the flaky teenager who lives in a storage container in the grounds of the old house, was an extreme example. But you couldn't help but love them. Even Anna's infuriating mother, who reassuringly announces that "even a slug can learn". Only Tobias, Anna's husband, really annoyed me. I could understand that he wanted to shut himself off from reality, but to move to a broken down old house and not raise a hammer to do any repairs, was beyond comprehension.This was an interesting mix of misery memoir and travel book, well balanced and wryly humorous.It's an excellent book club choice; our book club was split in its reactions to the situation and it made for an enthusiastic discussion.Search for the interview published in The Telegraph for the true inside story and photographs of the family.
    • 4/5
      So believable. A heartbreaking read. Who knows what life's gonna throw at us, and how we'll cope. Would we do any better than Anna and Tobias, who find themselves with a profoundly physically disabled baby. A really interesting read.
    • 4/5
      In Saira Shah's debut novel, The Mouse-Proof Kitchen, Anna and Tobias's plans - to leave London for an idyllic cottage in Provence where Anna can raise Freya while working part time as a chef and Tobias can chase lucrative work as a film music composer - are thrown into disarray when their daughter is born. Unexpectedly, the doctors have told them that Freya has brain malformations that indicate she will have severe cognitive and physical disabilities and neither Anna nor Tobias feel they will be able to cope with her needs. Tobias suggests abandoning their newborn in the hospital but Anna, despite her very real concern about her ability to love and care for their daughter, is persuaded to take Freya home 'for a while'. Reluctant to concede the death of their dreams, Anna and Tobias move to a partly derelict farmhouse in a remote region of France where they are faced with a kitchen infested by rodents, and a daughter they must learn to love.The Mouse-Proof Kitchen is a moving yet darkly subversive story inspired by, but not based upon, the author's own life experience. It is an exaggeration of emotion, domestic drama and dysfunction in the face of adversity, exploring the disruption of the 'best laid schemes of mice and men'.While Tobias buries himself in work, Anna tries desperately to re-gather the shards of her broken dreams but her reality is a kitchen infested by rodents, an unhelpful husband and the relentless needs of her daughter. Over the course of a year, as they struggle to accept their new circumstances, they battle with resentment, tiredness and guilt.Despite their glaring faults as parents, Anna and Tobias do provoke sympathy. They are both terrified to love Freya and become attached to a child whose life expectancy is limited and whose needs are unending.Respite from the emotional maelstrom comes from a supporting cast of quirky characters that make their way to Les Rajons including teenage hippy Lizzy, the angelic Kerim and Anna's visiting mother as well as neighbors Julien and Ludovic. Each character challenges Anna in particular to reexamine her notions about motherhood, family, marriage and in their own unique way, help Anna and Tobias on their journey to acceptance.Confronting, funny and touching, The Mouse-Proof Kitchen is a remarkable novel about the reshaping of dreams and unconditional love.
    • 4/5
      This heart-tugging emotional story told in a memoir-like format is intimately introspective, brutally honest yet deliciously warm with dollops of life-affirming humor. The narrator is Anna, a chef who loves order and this is accomplished by planning out her life dreams. Her partner is Tobias, a charming musician who is more carefree in his approach to life. But they are soon in a spot that stops them in their tracks – daughter Freya is born with profound disabilities. Anna worries what if she does not love Freya enough; Tobias worries what if we do, while an impulse buy of run-down animal infested farmhouse further challenges the couple’s past and future commitments. A glimpse into the healthcare systems of Britain and France and alternatives for disabled children was enlightening. This touching story of love, family, and loyalty is enhanced by a cast of eccentric secondary characters.
    • 4/5
      Anna and her husband Tobias eagerly anticipate the arrival of their first child. When Freya is born, the parents learn she will never develop the way most children do, that she will live a short and difficult life. Anna and Tobias, nevertheless, buy an old home in France and decide to take each day as it comes with Freya. I suspect this is a very honest look at the anxieties and pain and burdens and resentment and, yes, deep love that comes with having a child who doesn’t grow and change as expected. It’s a beautiful story of the way regular people try to face, then shirk, then try to face again enormous, lonely, and unexpected responsibilities, full of the frustrations and anger and joy that these responsibilities bring.

    Book preview

    The Mouse-Proof Kitchen - Saira Shah

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