So, I’d like to tell you about a book I just finished. It really was delicious. And brave. And funny. And often, painful. It was real.
I’m talking about Amy Finley’s How to Eat a Small Country.
In the spirit of full disclosure, you should probably know that I know Amy. During college we worked together for a couple of summers at UCLA’s alumni resort, Bruin Woods. When you spend two summers up in the mountains with 49 other college students and a weekly rotation of alumni, you get to know one another pretty well. At least as well as you can know a person at that moment in time.
Here is what I know about Amy: she is a wonderful storyteller. I remember standing on the pool deck (I was an occasional lifeguard) listening as she and her co-counselor spun intricate stories on-the-fly about the folklore of the evil Tommy Troll (why yes, that is a thinly veiled reference) and his marauding antics in and around the local geography of Lake Arrowhead (on which shores our little resort sits). I loved those stories and was in awe of how easily the clever tales rolled-off her tongue.
So, I was very excited to read her first book.
You might also know Amy. She won the third season of The Next Food Network Star.
She earned the brass ring, did six episodes of her show The Gourmet Next Door and then disappeared.
How to Eat a Small Country is a memoir about what happened next.
I was expecting a technicolor journey described in gorgeous countrysides and drool-on-the-page cuisine with a nice little story about the family along the way. And the book delivers on the scenery and the eats. The part about the family however, is exponentially more complex–and where the true beauty of the book lies.
As anyone who is or has been knows, marriage is really, really, really hard. It’s hard when it is good. It’s hard when it is bad. It’s just hard. And here is where Amy’s story starts. Right in the middle of the hard part. So she, her husband, two kids and Doobie the dog do what they should have done in Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road: they move to France in an effort to save themselves.
The process of saving a marriage is not particularly attractive so it would have been easy for Amy to sand down the sharp edges and tidy-up the package. But she doesn’t and is instead beautifully honest about her petty feelings, her anger and her own confusion at how she feels. And for this, I am indelibly appreciative. If Eat, Pray, Love had even an ounce of Amy’s candor and humility, I might have made it past the Italian part.
And did I mention that it’s hilarious in parts? Because that is how life is.
Really, really, really hard? Really?
I believe it was the great Joe Torre who said, “Marriage is like pizza. When it’s good, it’s very good. When it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.” Then again, he might have been talking about something else. What was I saying again?
I couldn’t make it past the Italian part of eat pray love either – I got bored and couldn’t force myself to do it!
I can’t wait to read this book! My copy is on order at my local independent.