Crave
A Memoir of Food and Longing
by Christine S. O'Brien
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
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Pub Date Nov 13 2018 | Archive Date Nov 20 2018
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Description
“Do you mind that I’m going to be writing a book about the fact that I was hungry?” I asked my mother. “Just tell a good story,” she replied.
Hunger comes in many forms. In her memoir, Crave, Christine S. O’Brien tells a story of family turmoil and incessant hunger hidden behind the luxury and privilege of New York’s famed Dakota apartment building. Her explosively angry father was ABC Executive Ed Scherick, the successful television and film producer who created shows and films like ABC’s Wide World of Sports and The Stepford Wives. Raised on farm in the Midwest, her calm, beautiful mother Carol narrowly survived a dramatic accident when she was child. There was no hint of instability in her life until one day she collapsed in the family’s apartment and spent the next year in bed. “Your mother’s illness is not physical,” Christine’s father tells her.
Craving a cure for a malady that the doctors said had no physical basis, Carol resorted to increasingly bizarre nutritional diets—from raw liver to fresh yeast—before beginning a rigid dietary regime known as “The Program.” It consisted largely of celery juice and blended salads—a forerunner of today’s smoothie. Determined to preserve the health of her family, Carol insisted that they follow The Program. Despite their constant hunger, Christine and her three younger brothers loyally followed their mother’s eating plan, even as their father’s rage grew and grew. The more their father screamed, the more their mother’s very survival seemed to depend on their total adherence to The Program.
This well-meant tyranny of the dinner table led Christine to her own cravings for family, for food, and for the words to tell the story of her hunger. Crave is the chronicle of Christine’s painful and ultimately satisfying awakening. And, just as her mother asked, it’s a good story.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781250128836 |
| PRICE | $28.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 272 |
Featured Reviews
Andrea L, Reviewer
Crave is based on the life of Christine O'Brien as she grows up with a famous, angry father and a mother who strives for control by forcing an extreme diet on her family. It has lasting effects, positive and negative, on the author and her three siblings. I found the authors life to be very exotic and interesting, so much different than the way most people live. The flow of the story is off at times but I think editing will remedy that.
This is overall a good book that I would recommend to memoir fans.
Jean M, Reviewer
Who is Christine O’Brien and what does she crave? After reading her memoir, I’m not sure.
But I do know that I enjoyed getting to know Christine and her family and I took pleasure in the well-tuned phrasing of this story. Although the book blurb promised painful revelations, I found instead the measured thoughts of a careful, good girl. I read this book over a few days, and when I had to put it down, I did so reluctantly and when I had time to read again, I looked forward to getting back to Christine’s world.
Christine was the oldest child of four, and the only girl. Her parents were remarkable. Her father was a successful entertainment executive and the tv shows and movies he produced are iconic. Her mother was raised in the Midwest on a farm and was also creative, intelligent and successful. Christine and her family lived in the Dakota, also iconic, in New York and then moved to Beverly Hills.
At this point in my description of the family you are probably picturing a crazy, out of control lifestyle beset by drugs and infidelity. Not so. In many ways, Christine’s family was typical All-American. Her mother stayed home, sewed Halloween costumes and spent time with the kids. Her father came home for dinner most nights and also seemed connected with his wife and kids. Although the father was high-strung, both parents seemed to love, and show love to their family. They enjoyed peaceful summers at the shore and other pleasant vacations. Christine and her younger brothers were close and enjoyed playing imaginary games together.
So, what was the painful problem? Well, it all began when the juicer bumped across the Formica. Christine’s mother suffered from hard to diagnose medical ailments and so she embarked on a quest to treat herself naturally with food. The juicer was the key to The Program. Christine’s mother bought crates of fresh lettuce, celery, and tomatoes each week and created fresh juice, and blended salads for every meal, for years. And thus began what the author called “the chain of control and rigidity and guilt.”
The author showed herself as a perceptive, quiet and contained girl and woman. As a child, one of her favorite books was The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. I loved the Peppers, a book series that was published at the turn of the 20th century. I also had other feelings of kinship with the author, as I grew up at about the same time as she did, back when parents were strict and mothers tended to have issues.
Crave lets the author tell her own story after the death of her parents. Her story is not dramatic, thrilling, or traumatic. Rather, it is a descriptive poem about her life and times.
While the book is described as the chronicle of a writer’s painful and ultimately satisfying awakening, I did not sense pain, but rather a series of deftly told observations. I am also not sure if she had a successful awakening but the book does end with the author realizing that it is healthy to seek a balanced life.
I enjoy memoirs and slice of life stories, so this book appealed to me and I recommend it.
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a review copy. This is my honest review.
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