While I ask about comfort food in every interview I do here on Cooking with Ideas, that is not what this is about. And, while I am in airport bookstores a lot these days, that is also not why I am writing on this topic and this despite the fact that the author of the book reviewed here, Kate Jacobs, is everywhere in such stores today. Why? She is author of the widely distributed and widely read The Friday Night Knitting Club. No, she is not writing murder mysteries about food (alas). No, she is not the author of the next great American novel. The Friday Night Knitting Club is, though, I think, currently number 4 on the NY Times bestseller list. Have I read it? No. But I have read an advance copy of her new novel which goes on sale today: Comfort Food. (For an excerpt, click here.) And no, I am not just saying it was a fun read because she was born and raised in Canada (Hope, B.C., near Vancouver) and went to Carleton University in Ottawa.
What do I think about Jacobs' second novel? My suspicion is that the book will do very well -- it has everything. A woman turning fifty, struggling with a combination of age and the workplace. Links to our national obsession with food-related television through her job as a television chef/cook and characters who ostensibly started a food-related cable station as well as a company specializing in healthy vending machines filled with fruit (ok, I am not in the know enough to know who might be the real world referents for some of Jacobs' notions). Daughters whose lives involve somewhat humorous romantic quirks (not to mention their more-than-somewhat invasive mother). An agoraphobic former tennis star hiding out from the press after her coach father... well, let's not give away too much but suffice it to say she's eating a lot of candy. Financial fraud. Miss Spain 1999. A veritable panoply of characters that make you smile, wince, and giggle. Horrifyingly familuiar team building exercises. The tension of internet versus television. And a few comments on food bloggers along the way. Not to mention multiculturalism and relatively smooth prose. A nice narrative flow and tone of voice. Some will likely call the novel "chick lit" and likely that is who you'll see buying it in airports and elsewhere. It is, indeed, "lite" fare though it takes up early death, and some pretty harsh realities of contemporary life. But it is, indeed, a nice bit of junkie foodie reading. Have fun. It is fun.
No recipes (thank goodness) but loads of foodie fun. And even those who are not truly foodiedwill enjoy some of the celebrity silliness and urban stuff. Don't expect serious literature. And if you are budgeting with the downturn of the economy or upturn in gas prices, get it from your public library or borrow it from a friend. And enjoy the female characters who vary from strong and resilient to quirky -- perhaps even weird -- and the ways they navigate (and transform) the worlds in which they live and work.
For her Jacobs' blog, click here. For an audio with Kate Jacobs focused on writing, click here. For an interview which includes attention to Comfort Food and Jacobs' admission she is addicted to Top Chef and a fan of the Barefoot Contessa, click here.
