crazy in Alabama

I got really lucky with this book, as soon as I posted my reading list on my blog this was found in my local 99p store, yay!

I really wasn't sure what to think about this one before I started reading it, I haven't heard much about the author other than that this was a dark and bawdy comic romp of a book.

Personally the word bawdy puts me off a book, especially when it's wrote by a man and has a female main character. This has nothing to do with me thinking that men can't write a good female character (they can) but has everything to do with the fact that the word bawdy when used in conjunction with female characters seems to mean lots and lots of unrequited and unprotected sex in the most unusual places and ways. Kinda a more explicit carry on film in book form (ohhh matron)

Although this assumption was fulfilled up to a point by the murdering housewife on the run with her husbands head in a hatbox and dreams of Hollywood, it by far wasn't the most interesting part of the book.

This honour would have to go to the bulk of the book which is seeing the black civil rights movement through the eye[s] of 12 year old peejoe. You can see the influence of Harper lee's to kill a mockingbird , kind of a updated version of what happened next.

Parts of this book genuinely touched me, especially the young protagonists meeting with Martin Luther King, and he's involvement on the side of civil rights due to a child's sense of justice and he's lack of knowledge to the fact that these actions can be dangerous to not only himself but also others that he cares about.

The book marks Peejoe out as a outsider from the very beginning, him and he's brother Wiley are both orphans living with their memaw, when the world gets turned upside down by being made to go live with their uncle Dove in Industry.

As the race riots erupt over the killing of a young black youth over a swimming pool which Peejoe is a witness to we watch him and he's family get more and more alienated as they try to do whats right.

Peejoe is an outsider in every faction although he feels for the black community he's different, he gets away from a beating due to his skin colour when the local klu kluck clan starts firing on a peaceful protest but he's not part of the white community due to his sympathies for the "other " side. This difference is finally given to him physically when he has a accident which results in his going blind in one eye. For me this was a physical manifestation of the fact that he looked at the world in a different way from everyone else in the book. Peejoe himself wonders if he's been blinded because he's seen too much.

This isn't really a comfortable read, most of the people you want to have a break don't get it and a lot of the people you want to see suffer don't. It's not a weakness in the writing but it doesn't give you that warm glow at the end that some books do. I did say in one of my other reviews though that I like a bit of grit in my books and this one delivered it to me.

I did really enjoy this once I got into it after a slow start on my account (the book gets down to it pretty quickly) It's not going to become a favourite but I know a couple of my friend who'd love it due to it's dark humour and yes it's bawdy parts.

If like me your into the domestic side of fiction it may not be for you, but Peejoe's story made it worth reading for me alone. I'll let you know soon what I decided to cook.

fried green tomatoes at whistle stop cafe

I started reading this at the beginning of August, and at the same time I was reading a review at booksnob for the wonderful book Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont. Whilst reading all the comments and wonderful conversations going on about the hardship about growing old alongside my own experience of working in a care home for the elderly it made me read the book rather differently than other people.

The book centres around a cafe run by two women in the 1930's that was the heart of the community, going between time we learn about the residents in the town of whistlestop through their connection to the cafe.

Running alongside this main story we get pointers and set ups to the stories through the friendship of middle aged Evelyn couch and the elderly Cleo Threadgoode who lives at Rose Terrace nursing home where Evelyns mother in law lives.

The book is populated by lots of quirky characters and is meant to be heartwarming and show the value of friendship no matter how strange friendship that may be.

The book is a lovely read but that's what makes it fall short for me, I like my novels with a bit more grit and reality in them than this one gives you.

Although the idea is lovely, I don't see how Ruth and Idgie who run the cafe who are obviously lovers and who will sell their food to the black community would have had no repercussions or reprisals at that time in history with the politics of the time being what they were.

The head of the local klu kluck clan is the towns sheriff and very good friends with the cafe owners , and whilst he may disagree with what they do sometimes he leaves them to their business and even helps them out of a few scrapes.

Whilst the book does touch on some serious subjects in the book, racism, domestic violence and even a murder in the town. It always just feels like a yarn of days gone by, never gone into with enough detail whilst knowing that it will all work out in the end.

Even though I did like the characters they felt like characters of today rather than from a different time period. The characters were who you hoped you would have been if you lived then, a transplant of modern day morals into the past.

Everyone is pretty tolerant and the people who aren't are from outside of their immediate community of Whistlestop.

In general though it made me think has society changed that much? We don't seem to get over our prejudices just place them somewhere else, at the moment the papers are always talking crap about Muslims and illegal immigrants and whilst reading a paper left out by a resident on my night shift I read someone saying in the comment section that the middle east should help with the aid for Pakistan instead of Britain as they're the same religion and we're not. How sad and narrow minded is that?

Then we come to the relationship between Evelyn and Mrs Threadgoode, how I wish I could see this. Unfortunately most elderly people in homes aren't like this.

Most who do talk about the past will repeat the same stories over, and for alot of them the past just seems to painful to talk about.

I can't say I blame them as their generation was so independent and amazing and it must be incredibly depressing to think about the things you can no longer do and to think about alot of people who you shared these things with who have now passed away.

Whilst reading these bits of the book I felt an incredible sadness, I just wanted to be able to have this friendship with the people that I know.

Overall this is a lovely book and if unlike me you can put aside your disbelief that people can be this nice than you'll probably really enjoy it. It's not a bad book but it also isn't a amazing book.

I'll let you know what I've cooked for the book in the next few days.

she flew the coop

I really wish that i could call this book a good chick lit book without the awful connotations that go with it! It should probably be called middle aged chick lit, but that sounds so insulting. This isn't a book just for middle aged women although its mainly about them.

It does have a kinda happy ending like those sort of trashy novels do but in a completely different way. You leave this novel feeling like you've chewed on something quite substantial, kind of like some of the food described in the book.

The book starts with 16 year old Olive Nepper drinking poison and going into a coma because shes pregnant with the local preachers baby, which in the 1950s we all know to be a bad thing.
The story then progresses and we meet other residents of this small southern town Limoges in Louisiana and get to know them and their troubles.

This book is dark in plot yet michael lee west uses a light touch in the telling of the story.
This is definitely a book to make you laugh and then cry, sometimes all in the same chapter. Throughout the book are many delectable descriptions of food and recipes, and these arnt just added in as pretty extras.
Whilst the society around them is outwardly controlled by men in the forms of both the church and husbands, in their own domestic spheres these women are god and get out alot of their frustrations and emotions out in what they cook.
The most obvious and heartbreaking example of this are "Sophie's beaten biscuits" a meal that she starts to cook for herself when she thinks her violent husbands out for the night.
I personally loved this aspect of the book but i have a feeling that if you don't think about food all the time like i do that you may find the constant food chatter irritating.
One thing that i did find unsatisfactory about this book for me was the ending, two of the women ended up conveniently widowed which made it feel a bit moralistic in a everyone gets their just desserts way.
Considering the era in which the book is set it kinda made sense since one of the husbands would have been able to run of with he's wife's inheritance.
But i feel that if your going to go down the moralistic route that you should go whole hog. For one man to get killed off for having an affair but letting the preacher who got a sixteen year old pregnant and then grooms and seduces a thirteen year old which results in her walking home bleeding severely only getting tarred and feathered before hes made to leave town seems out of proportion to me.
I know life doesn't work that way but if you take the route of righteousness in a book i want full payback!
Saying all of that though i did really enjoy this book, West is very witty and funny. One of my favourite lines from the book was "A hard dick has no conscience" which made me laugh out loud so much that my partner insisted on knowing what was so funny and then being thoroughly unamused.

I would recommend this book, but i would also warn them that there is alot of sex in this book and not all of it is nice. Overall its quite feelgood in character and would make you feel better if your having a crap time with men, yet in not too twee a way.

In my next post I'll give you the details for the southern feast i devised.

consuming passions

So I've just finished reading this and I kinda have mixed views on this one. I love the authors writing style, It's so chatty and sometimes you feel like your having a very personal chat. I also found myself laughing out loud quite alot.

Stories of her mother being particularly funny, such as a description of her mother swinging from a chandelier because of her family saying the word gumbo one too many times after comparing one more favourably to hers.

Characters are painted so well, you can really believe in their quirky ways and traits whilst they aren't complete characteurs.

What then do I have the mixed feelings about?

It's kinda a terminology issue as the book is presented as a memoir and I feel that this may have been the wrong term to use.

I always think as a memoir as going through a particular period in the authors life, an A to B journey with occasional pit stops along the way. This book whilst definitely being about the authors life, beautifully written and entertaining doesn't fit this criteria.

There are stories about her husband but we don't really get a story about how they met, or about her having her children. Whilst reading these are the sort of details that I was desperate to know about.

For me the book felt more like building a relationship with a new friend. You have conversations and tell each other stories, you find out about each other little by little and not in chronological order, but by what you feel like talking about at that particular moment in time.

With this particular friend you also get alot of food talk, with one chapter being titled "fear of frying" which then goes into detail about the dos, don'ts and why she's so scared of frying.

This is both a strength and a weakness to the book as you sometimes feel like your not really going anywhere, just bouncing along on the authors whim.

To be honest I don't know what they should have presented this book as, essays perhaps? or how about as kitchen tales or stories? that has a nice ring to it.

I only have one other complaint about the book, in some of the recipes she lists specific cake mixes to use. Not living in America this is a major disappointment as I can't get them, particularly as it was for a coconut layer cake I wanted to try.

I can't complain though as the recipe was to with a particular story and it worked within the content of the chapter, I'm just disappointed is all.

Overall I would recommend this book of kitchen tales to others as it is incredibly enjoyable with some lovely recipes included. Just don't expect it to take you from A to B in a straight line, enjoy the twists, turns and pit stops in the writing.

A food obsessed life indeed.

The Age of Innocence

I thought I'd start my first review with a re-reading of an American classic and Pulitzer prize winner.

I first found this book not because of the above reasons, but because it's a Virago modern classic. A series that i read with a passion!
The plot is a classic tale of thwarted love and passion, Newland Archer is to marry the pretty and conventional May Welland who is everything a well bred girl should be.

Uncertainty the arrives in the form of Mays cousin the Countess Olenska who returns from Europe and a disastrous marriage.

Newland at first befriends her for hes fiances sake, but he soon starts to fall in love with her, her unconventional ways and free spirit.

This leads to Archer to start questioning hes own morals along with those of the society that he lives in.

The plot for me while being damn good isn't the main point, you know it can only go one way. It's how it gets there which is so interesting.

This book is a glimpse into a now extinct society, it's motives for why things are done in a certain way and the lengths that it will go to keep things that way is what i find truly fascinating.

The writing style is incredibly controlled being both at once very descriptive about material possesions, yet leaving so much unsaid about how anyone is feeling as almost no one says what they are really thinking.

For me this this style really adds to the feeling of suppressed passion that is felt by both Archer and the Countess.

This novel isn't a clear cut one, its main theme is the struggle of carrying out your duty to society and your duty to yourself to be happy.

The ending of this novel is beautiful and leaves so much unsaid, you can spend ages mulling it over afterwards.

I,ve included a link to a reading guide as i find that having questions to think about helps me to read a book more carefully.

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/age_of_innocence.html

I hope that you've enjoyed this post and in the next one I'll give my recipe for my Age of innocence inspired cupcakes.

the recipe is here