Synopsis
A biography of Julia Child, America's favorite French cook, from her O.S.S. days during World War II to her television celebrity-hood, including the moving story of her long marriage to Paul Child, who introduced her to the pleasures of good food.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-10-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 569 pages | | Height: | 9.5 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.8 in | | Weight: | 30.4 oz |
Publisher's Note
Julia Child became a household name when she entered the lives of millions of Americans through our hearts and kitchens. Yet few know the richly varied private life that lies behind this icon whose statuesque height and warmly enthused warble have become synonymous with the art of cooking. In this biography, we meet the earthy and outrageous Julia, who, at age eighty-five, remains a complex role model. Fitch, who had access to all of Julia's private letters and diaries, takes us through her life from her exuberant youth as a high-spirited California girl to her years at Smith College, where Julia was at the center of every prank and party. When most of her girlfriends married, Julia volunteered with the OSS in India and China during World War II, and was an integral part of this elite corps. There she met her future husband, the cosmopolitan Paul Child, who introduced her to the glories of art, fine French cuisine, and love. Theirs was a deeply passionate romance and a modern marriage of equals.Julia began her culinary training only at the age of thirty-seven at the Cordon Bleu. Later she roamed the food markets of Marseilles, Bonn, and Oslo. She invested ten years of learning and experimentation in what would become her first bestselling classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Now, her career is legend, spanning nearly forty years and still going strong. Generations love the humor and trademark aplomb that have made Julia Child a household name. Resisting fads and narrow, fanatical conventions of health-consciousness, Julia is the quintessential teacher. The perfect gift for food lovers and a romantic biography of a woman modern before her time, this is a truly American life. Bon apptit!
Industry Reviews
"[V]ivid description and amazingly intimate detail....A bit of judicious cutting could have sharpened the focus....Child emerges as a resilient, down-to-earth person of enormous energy."
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review - Jeannette Ferrary (09/28/1997)
"Child is an important figure, and she deserves a better biography....Having amassed a mountain of raw material, [the author] has turned it over to the hapless reader, unrefined, unsifted, and apparently undisturbed by an editor's hand....The writing is resolutely subliterate. Against the odds, Child's outsize personality and charm shine through, in large part via the witty, incisive letters of her husband, a fascinating man with great literary flair."
New York Times Book Review - William Grimes (10/26/1997)
"...[D]espite having spent five years burrowing into the world of gastronomy, Fitch herself ultimately seems almost indifferent to the sensual pleasure of food that so impassioned Child....[T]he definitive Julia Child biography awaits an author whose joie de vivre at least approximates that of her subject."
Los Angeles Times Book Review - David Shaw (11/09/1997)
"[A] loving, overstuffed biography of the cook from Pasadena who introduced French cooking to the American kitchen....An exhaustively researched, charming story of a life well lived, and an admiring portrait of a good marriage."
Rodriguez
"The problem is that Fitch herself is indifferent to the flavors and textures of food and to the subtleties of its preparation--matters that are the passionate concern of her subject. It is as though someone who had never thought of holding a brush...had attempted a life of Cézanne....To dwell on Fitch's failings as a writer, or to let them spoil the pleasure to be had from an encounter with her gracious, if maltreated, subject..., would be a pity. Even the clumsiest of writers cannot dull a woman who...has given her fellow-Americans the confidence to challenge the life-denying follies of their times."
New Yorker - Jacob Epstein (10/13/1997)
"Noël Riley Fitch has taken on the unenviable task of writing Child's biography to date. I say unenviable because with Child the standard for charm has been set very high. 'Appetite for Life' is a mixed bag."
Salon - Patric Kuh (11/07/1997)
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