About the Author

Susan Rebecca White is the author of the critically acclaimed novels A Place at the Table, A Soft Place to Land, and Bound South. She has taught creative writing at Hollins University, the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD, and Emory University. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia and can be found at her website, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

Book Information

A Place at the Table by Susan Rebecca White

Publisher: Touchstone

Publication Date: June 4, 2013

Genre: Contemporary Literature

Purchase: Amazon – Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Audible

Book Description

“A rich, beautiful novel about three unlikely, complex characters who meet in a chic Manhattan cafe and realize they must sacrifice everything they ever knew or cared about to find authenticity, fulfillment, and love.

A Place at the Table tells the story of three richly nuanced characters whose paths converge in a chic Manhattan cafe: Bobby, a gay Southern boy who has been ostracized by his family; Amelia, a wealthy Connecticut woman whose life is upended when a family secret finally comes to light; and Alice, an African-American chef whose heritage is the basis of a famous cookbook but whose past is a mystery to those who know her.

As it sweeps from a freed-slave settlement in 1920s North Carolina to the Manhattan of the deadly AIDs epidemic of the 1980s to today’s wealthy suburbs, A Place at the Table celebrates the healing power of food and the magic of New York as three seekers come together in the understanding that when you embrace the things that makes you different, you become whole.”

My Review

This book was a great book and not completely what I was expecting. From the cover and title I was expecting a lighter fiction read or a lovey-dovey romance book. This book was neither of those two things. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a more general literature read. Susan Rebecca White did a great job of not only showing the three characters but allowing me to connect with each one in different ways. Also, the settings were wonderfully written and give you a real sense of not only the South but New York City as well. I especially loved the characters of Bobby, his MeeMaw and the relationship between the two. Ultimately my only complaint about this book was that it ended. I didn’t want to leave the characters or their stories behind.