The Hidden Life of Eddie Kitchens

by Will Gibson

Edwina Kitchens, the beloved mother of her church for nearly 50 years, dies. In her early years she was affectionately known by friends and family as “Eddie.“ After the funeral her teenage granddaughter finds an old trunk in her attic, and tells her mother about it. Her mother is the old lady’s oldest daughter, who doesn’t believe her eyes when she goes through all the photos, letters, and photography equipment in the trunk, especially all the torrid love letters from China. She wonders how the beautiful young woman in the photos could have been her quiet, meek, religious mother. Digging deeper into the trunk, she comes upon some letters that strongly suggest that the Chinese man who authored the love letters was possibly her real father. “Am I half-Chinese?” she gasped, horrified that possibly her religious mother’s life had been a gigantic hoax, and that she herself was living a lie.

No one in the family knew that when a young woman this saintly old lady from a small Iowa town had gone to New York City as a photojournalist in the 1930s and taken Harlem by storm. They didn’t know that when abroad she photographed and interviewed famous people like Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung. While in China covering the Sino-Japanese War, she reported on the awful massacre in Nanking, and her amazing photos shocked the world. China was where she met and fell in love with a handsome Chinese Communist military officer, and became pregnant by him. This is a story about the search for identity by the daughter, and the surprising life her mother had lived as a young reporter in Asia just before the Second World War.

266 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 9, 2013

Reviews

[Ann Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Yet another book that completely caught off guard. I immediately fell in love with Eddie and found myself surprised again and again where this plot led me. Gibson does an amazing job at leading the reader to feel what Eddie is feeling rather than simply telling the story. I enjoyed every moment of it and very highly recommend this book.

[Will Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Fantastic Book About An Exceptional Life

Book reviewer Patti Jane called Will Gibson’s novel THE HIDDEN LIFE OF EDDIE KITCHENS a fantastic book about an exceptional life, giving it five stars

“I loved this book. The characters were so real and stimulating. This was an incredible adventure--not your usual ‘boy meets girl, etc.’ Eddie is an amazing woman living during an amazing time. Read it. You won’t be disappointed,” she wrote on Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Life-Edd...

[Howard Katzoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book about an exceptional life.

I loved this book. The characters were so real and stimulating. This was an incredible adventure--not your usual "boy meets girl,etc." Eddie is an amazing woman living during an amazing time. Read it-you won,t be disappointed.

[Tehila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was gripped from the first paragraph of this novel, and finished it in one afternoon. It reads more like a biography than a novel.

My only complaint is the lack of proofreading - apparently the proofreader got so wrapped up in the novel that as s/he progressed, s/he did more reading and less correcting of the spelling. Please remember to use a grammar checker as well as spell checker.

This was a free copy of the book.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely a "good read." I enjoyed the many lives of Ms. Eddie Kitchens and all the points of history that this book touched on. It would have been nice of the author, Will Gibson, to include the sources he used for his research.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who would have thought that the main character would have had such an interesting life! I really enjoyed this book.