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An Autobiography of My Appetites
Doubleday
July 2013
On Sale: July 9, 2013
368 pages
ISBN: 0385536267
EAN: 9780385536264
Kindle: B00B0LP47C
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Memoir
From acclaimed novelist Kate Christensen, Blue
Plate Special is a mouthwatering literary memoir
about an unusual upbringing and the long, winding path to
happiness. “To taste fully is to live fully.” For
Kate Christensen, food and eating have always been powerful
connectors to self and world—“a subterranean conduit to
sensuality, memory, desire.” Her appetites run deep; in her
own words, she spent much of her life as “a hungry, lonely,
wild animal looking for happiness and stability.” Now,
having found them at last, in this passionate feast of a
memoir she reflects upon her journey of innocence lost and
wisdom gained, mistakes made and lessons learned, and hearts
broken and mended. In the tradition of
M. F. K. Fisher, Laurie Colwin, and Ruth Reichl, Blue
Plate Special is a narrative in which food—eating it,
cooking it, reflecting on it—becomes the vehicle for
unpacking a life. Christensen explores her history of
hunger—not just for food but for love and confidence and a
sense of belonging—with a profound honesty, starting with
her unorthodox childhood in 1960s Berkeley as the daughter
of a mercurial legal activist who ruled the house with his
fists. After a whirlwind adolescent awakening, Christensen
strikes out to chart her own destiny within the literary
world and the world of men, both equally alluring and
dangerous. Food of all kinds, from Ho Hos to haute cuisine,
remains an evocative constant throughout, not just as
sustenance but as a realm of experience unto itself, always
reflective of what is going on in her life. She unearths
memories—sometimes joyful, sometimes painful—of the love
between mother and daughter, sister and sister, and husband
and wife, and of the times when the bonds of love were
broken. Food sustains her as she endures the pain of these
ruptures and fuels her determination not to settle for
anything less than the love and contentment for which she’s
always yearned. The physical and
emotional sensuality that defines Christensen’s fiction
resonates throughout the pages of Blue Plate Special.
A vibrant celebration of life in all its truth and
complexity, this book is about embracing the world through
the transformative power of food: it’s about listening to
your appetites, about having faith, and about learning what
is worth holding on to and what is not.
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