A Certain Hunger
Ratings23
Average rating3.8
'Irresistable.' Megan Abbott 'A gory, gorgeous feast of a book.' Kiran Millwood Hargrave 'This book is crazy. You have to read it.' Bon Appetit Dorothy Daniels has always had a voracious - and adventurous - appetite. From her idyllic farm-to-table childhood (homegrown tomatoes, thick slices of freshly baked bread) to the heights of her career as a food critic (white truffles washed down with Barolo straight from the bottle) Dorothy has never been shy about indulging her exquisite tastes - even when it lead to her plunging an ice pick into her lover's neck. There is something inside Dorothy that makes her different from everybody else. Something she's finally ready to confess. But beware: her story just might make you wonder how your lover would taste sautéed with shallots and mushrooms and deglazed with a little red wine.
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One sentence synopsis... From inside a correctional facility, a former food writer and serial killer narrates her life's story as told through the meals and the men she's consumed.
Read it if you like... the most obvious comparison is obviously Hannibal (specifically the Mads television version). Summers's writing is as metaphor-heavy as Raymond Chandler, with plenty of food comparisons to work with. But she tries to squeeze too much into a slim novel - the democratization of writing on the internet, feminism, the industrial meat complex, the history of cannibalism, the modern art world, etc - and isn't completely successful in blending everything together.
Dream casting... Julianne Moore as Dorothy Daniels.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, from the food to the sex to the killings to the reminiscences–it was all a trip and I look forward to more from Chelsea Summers. Her irreverent humour, her assertive feminine persona, her abrasive and in-your-face opinions–it's all a hoot. Highly recommended.
