Cleaving

February 22, 2010
Powell flounders in her latest cooking-themed memoir. Trying to end an affair, the married Powell leaves town and seeks distraction in a butcher shop. She explores her obsessions with meat and with her lover—but listeners will quickly tune out. Her sarcastic inflections, flat tone, and nervous voice that worked reasonably well with Julie and Julia
sound supercilious and affected here. The clunky performance cannot redeem the uninspired prose, and Powell—who compulsively cheats on her “saintly” husband—is difficult to empathize with. A Little, Brown hardcover.

December 15, 2009
The author of the charming, riveting, thrillingand successfully filmedJulie and Julia (2005), in which Powell recounted her year spent cooking all the recipes in Julia Childs classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, has turned to butchery! As she relays in her new memoir, after her year with Julia, she apprenticed in a butcher shop in upstate New York and learned the trade from the inside out, from sinew to steak. Another prominent theme here is the stress placed on her marriage to the understanding, even noble Eric (as he was depicted in the previous memoir) by their mutual infidelities. Its a grim book. Powells fans happily voyaged with her through Julia Childs cookbook, but taking the journey through her learning the art of butchery is another matter. Graphic, even gross, detail about breaking down a beef or pig carcass and about her adulterous sex life (Do we really want to hear about her phone sex with her lover?) blocks any sunshine from emerging from these pages. The previous book made foodies of us all, but this book may convince us that vegetarians have had the right idea all along.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)