"Eat a Peach," by David Chang

Longtime readers of this blog may remember that I have posted about quite a few chef/restaurant memoirs. I love the world of restaurants! But for the past eight months, because of the coronavirus pandemic, I have been in strict stay-at-home mode, and have not eaten at any restaurants; gradually, I have found myself much less interested in such memoirs. Every time I saw a mention of, or a review of, David Chang’s new memoir, “Eat a Peach” (Clarkson Potter, 2020), I fleetingly considered reading it, but just couldn’t sustain interest. But recently I went ahead and bought it, and as I started reading it, I was inhaled back into the restaurant world. Chang is the enormously successful founder of Momofuku in New York, along with several ensuing restaurants there and elsewhere around the country and world. He has won numerous awards, including six James Beard Awards and several Michelin stars. Of course I had heard about Momofuku, a refined, original noodle place that became incredibly popular, although unfortunately I have never eaten there. I loved hearing the backstories, and the author’s takes on other chefs, critics, and related people and events in the food world. But what adds another dimension to this memoir is Chang’s description of his own struggles with depression and bipolarity, along with his blend of confidence and insecurity. He is candid about his own bad behaviors as well, including much screaming at workers in his restaurants. Although readers can never be sure if candor is sincere, or an attempt to win sympathy and to pre-empt criticism, I believed Chang, and felt for him. He also writes of his own blind spots about the restaurant world, and how it took him too long to recognize sexism and other problematic issues in that world. In any case, this fascinating memoir drew me back to the world of restaurants, and now I am sadder than ever that the pandemic has been so devastating for restaurants. And on a selfish personal note: I remember, pre-COVID, when I was sometimes sorry that I couldn’t try ALL the wonderful restaurants I read and heard about (although I did try a good many!); now I am sorry that I can’t try ANY of them for the foreseeable future.

Short Takes: Three Novels and a Memoir

Due to pandemic shelter-at-home, I somehow am reading (even) more but too busy with work (from home) and everything else to post about the books I read. Some books I don’t post about at all, as they are perfectly fine but don’t stand out (in my humble opinion), but others I want to at least mention, so a backlog has developed. Thus my collective post of 10/20/20, about five books. Today my post covers four books that I recently admired and enjoyed, but am writing about in one post to reduce the backlog. First is the novel “Payback” (Pantheon, 2020) by the always-superb Mary Gordon, whose work I have been reading and been in awe of for many years. “Payback” is a novel of revenge, not against the man who took advantage of the main character when she was a vulnerable teenager, but against the kindly teacher who inadvertently put her into the situation leading to the sexual assault. The main character changes her name, bides her time, becomes a celebrity, and plots the “payback” of the title. It is a very timely and unsettling story. Second is Caroline Leavitt’s novel “With or Without You” (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2020). I have also read and enjoyed several of Leavitt’s earlier novels. This one is about an unexpected and complicated love triangle, precipitated by the illness and two-month-long coma of one of the characters. It is also about the main character’s discovering her artistic and psychological powers. Third is Nick Hornby’s latest novel, “Just Like You” (Riverhead, 2020). Hornby’s reliably sensitive, humorous, psychologically aware, and always entertaining novels are a joy to read. This one is about a fortyish woman and a twenty-two year old man, of different classes, races and educational backgrounds, who somehow unexpectedly fall in love. The path is hard but touching and the story is witty and engaging. Hornby is also an author many of whose prior novels I have read. The only “new” author to me, in this group of four, is Melissa Cistaro, and her book is a memoir rather than a novel: “Pieces of My Mother” (Sourcebooks, 2015). It tells the story of how Cistaro’s mother suddenly left the family when Cistaro and her brothers were children. Thirty-six years later, Cistaro goes to see her mother as she is dying, and finds unposted letters that explain at least some of the reasons for the abandonment. The story is very sad, but at the same time shows how families somehow survive so much, and how resilient people can be. As a side note: the author is (or at least was at the time of this book's being published) the events coordinator of the wonderful bookstore, Book Passage, which is located just a few miles north of where I live in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. I have been going to that bookstore, one of my absolute favorites, for decades, not only to browse and buy books (including almost all my Christmas gifts every year), but to attend many readings by local, national, and international authors.

"What Are You Going Through," by Sigrid Nunez

Sigrid Nunez is a truly original writer, in a somewhat quirky way that takes getting used to. On 2/7/19, I posted about her novel “The Friend,” which is about a woman who unintentionally and somewhat against her will acquired a dog companion (left to her by a friend who died), and with time, found the dog to be a treasured friend. This perhaps sounds annoyingly sentimental, but it definitely isn’t. It isn’t a book that I would have expected to like, and I had to warm up to it, but then I was completely captivated, perhaps won over as the main character was by the dog. In Nunez’s new novel, “What Are You Going Through” (no question mark) (Riverhead, 2020), there is a similar strange, uncomfortable vibe in the sense that it involves the main character being drawn into something that she never asked for or wanted to do: she reluctantly agrees to accompany her friend who has a fatal disease in her final days, knowing that her friend plans to commit suicide (self-euthanize). But in this novel as in “The Friend,” the main character is drawn in, wanting to be a good friend, and also somewhat fascinated by the decision her friend has made. The novel is about death, yes, but really it is more about life, about friendship, about enduring what seems unendurable, and about savoring the time together as the story moves toward the inevitable end. As with “The Friend,” the description makes the novel sound sentimental (the friendship part, not the dying part), but it is in fact quite unsentimental and unsparing in its observations about how people feel and behave in such circumstances. The main characters in both books are a little prickly, although caring, and do not make it easy for readers to immediately appreciate them or desire their company, but they end by being compelling, as are both the books themselves. In other words, in both novels, the characters and the stories sneak up on the reader. Both novels are beautifully written. This is a small book, physically (just over 200 small pages), but it shows us so much about friendship, connection, and what human beings do for each other over and over again.

RIP Diane di Prima

I heard San Francisco poet Diane di Prima read within a month of my arriving in San Francisco for a new teaching position, many many years ago. I was excited to be in this fabled city, with its beauty and vibrant culture. As an English major, I had studied the Beat poets, but of course those were mainly men. The reading was in Golden Gate Park, and sure enough, the poets were almost all men. I was thrilled and starstruck to see them and hear them read their work. But Di Prima was a revelation, and she is the one whom I remember from that evening of poetry. That evening came back to me when I heard of Di Prima’s death on October 25th, at the age of 86. She was originally from New York City, and started writing poetry at a young age. One of her high school classmates, with whom she shared her early poetry, was another gifted and legendary poet, Audre Lorde. De Prima was a teacher, an editor, an organizer, an activist, and at one point, San Francisco’s poet laureate. She was also the mother of five children. She was unafraid to write about female sexuality, graphically at that, and about motherhood. She never stopped writing, even during her final eight years during which she suffered from Parkinson’s disease and other health problems. She lived life fully, literarily and otherwise, and she was a pioneer in poetry. I know she inspired many, including this blogger/reader/feminist. (Thanks go to reporter Sam Whiting at the San Francisco Chronicle, in his 10/29/20 obituary, for some of the details included in this post.)

"The Names of All the Flowers," by Melissa Valentine

As with Yaa Gyasi’s novel, “Transcendent Kingdom,” about which I posted last time (10/28/20), Melissa Valentine’s memoir “The Names of All the Flowers” (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2020) has a central tragedy: a young woman’s tragic loss of her beloved brother. In both cases, fictional and real, the loss has to do with all the difficulties faced by young black men in the United States. Valentine in particular makes it very clear that her brother’s life represents so many young black men’s lives. Her father is white and her mother is black; they raise six children, always somewhat struggling for money, but hanging on to a barely middle-class life, and making sure their children get good educations. The place the author and her brother grow up is Oakland, California, which added to the interest of the memoir to me, as Oakland is in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I too live, but in a different county. The memoirist is the “good girl” who gets good grades, takes care of family members, and always mediates among family members when there is tension, but for the sake of her beloved brother Junior, she is willing to break some rules too. The memoir is about family, race, gender, education, and much more. It is well-written, feels very “real,” and is poignant and moving.