Review: Yes Chef by Marcus Samuelsson

From the exceptional cover design to the last page, I loved almost everything about Yes, Chef. I loved it's honesty, I loved it's style, I loved the unique life it describes. Holding me back from outright glee were some minor construction problems and Samuelsson himself. He is such a complicated man. I have so much compassion for him yet his honesty also leads me to impatience. There is a myth that one can have everything in life. The thing about everything is that you can't have it all at once. In Samuelsson's case he has had the work ethic, the family support, the drive, the charisma, the intelligence - but he is an absolutely (spoiler alert!) horrible father. Yet his honesty makes him the most charming failure of parenting I've read about in a long time. At the same time he ignores his own child, Samuelsson mentors others. He has a strong desire to bring African Americans into the world of fine dining. He believes in diversifying the upcoming kitchen crews and showcasing Harlem as the convergence of color and culture it has always been. He is a a fascinating person to read about.

With all the honesty Samuelsson eloquently brings to his life story, he has a blind spot. This is a man who feels safest in the kitchen, who has a flight response to emotional damage. Samuelsson has emotions I don't think he's even labeled yet. For all he has overcome, there is much lying in wait for him. What to make of such a conflicted individual? While sponsoring scholarships for relatives in his native Ethiopia and working with the youth of Harlem, Samuelsson also abandons his only child. How will she read this book, as an adult? What will she make of his revelations? Inside is a portrait of a young man who was plucked from impossible odds to land in a safe and loving home. Fortunate enough to find a calling when his first dream died, he applied a single minded focus to achieving it. But this man who is so clear in the dynamics of a kitchen family is adrift in his own. His love for his child is clear, his conflict obvious. But both are presented in terms of himself, and only himself. He didn't want to be "that guy" who fathered an out of wedlock child, so he kept her a professional secret. His career had to come first, but if it had derailed (he claims) then he would have been present in her life. He paid his child support diligently (after his parents insisted) but never called, never wrote. He discussed her life with her mother, but not with her. There were no gifts. Until she was 14, her father was not accessible in any way. When she confronts him, he says he just didn't know how to find the words, how to make the time, what to do. So he didn't.  He is proud she has seen him as a success, proud he was able to introduce her to Kanye West, ready to take responsibility now and face her anger because he prides himself on being able to take the heat. The heat is over. His daughter is a young woman. At the end of the book he lists all of the things he has to be thankful for. It's a list both personal and professional. It's not brief. It doesn't contain his child.*

In the first 2/3 of the book Samuelsson's story is linear and focused. He knows who he was and why he made the moves he did. He talks with love and insight about his family and himself. In the last 1/3 of the book Samuelsson founders. His unresolved emotional conflicts are exposed. The book jumps about in time and becomes less concise. While powerful, it is obvious that these are parts of his life that are in progress, still being weighed and cataloged. Unable to ask if his own parents abandoned him, unable to face what abandoning his daughter really meant, Samuelsson leaves a document of explanation for her if she is able to see it. When his birth mother was dying she used the last of her strength to seek medical attention for her children. His father was in parts unknown. A man can be great without being famous. A man can be great without being perfect. Marcus Samuelsson is a great man who has (and will) impact many lives in positive and meaningful ways. Yes, Chef is completely worth reading. I say go ahead and pre-order it.

*I read this book in ARC form. I hope she's added before publication.

Review: Paris In Love by Eloisa James

Paris In Love is going to be a tough review for me to write.

First, there's cancer. I hate cancer. I hate cancer so much I don't even like Cancer Memoirs, the exceptional Mom's Cancer aside. In the beginning chapter we discover that Eloisa James has been diagnosed with cancer a short two months after losing her mother to the disease. Furthermore, she herself adores cancer memoirs and has Inspirational Friends with cancer. Look, I gave at the cancer office (more than once) in all sorts of ways. I have Opinions about Cancer and Parenting Post Cancer or With Cancer and all of that. I can't help but bring a giant boxcar of baggage to any cancer book and that is one of the reasons I don't read them.

Secondly, there's Facebook. (I don't dislike Facebook as much as cancer. Given a choice between eradicating Facebook and eradicating cancer I would totally choose to end cancer. Most days.) Paris In Love is not  a wholly original work. James has retooled her Facebook entries into quick snippets of experience assembled into chapters and interspersed with a few multi page transitions. Wait, you might be asking, if I buy this book I'm essentially getting a curated version of the author's Facebook wall? Yes. You are.

Thirdly, my class issues are triggered. Like Eloisa James, I was not raised in anything like affluence. Like Eloisa James I can travel Europe pretty much at will now and I could also live as an expatriate if I so desired. I think this is the sort of thing that must be acknowledged as it is a deeply abnormal life. Most of America cannot sell their home, live without strong financial concerns in Paris for a year, then return to purchase a property in New York City. (Actually, I can't purchase a property in New York City. Fiscal advantage James.) That's pretty 5% at the bare minimum. The sheer lack of logistics in Paris In Love throws this into sharp focus. Due to the snippet nature of it's telling, there are no practicalities. Nothing on how to find the Paris apartment or acquire the proper paperwork. I wasn't looking for a How To Guide, but some nod to the intricacies would have been welcome. After all, she includes several pages of her favorite shops at the end.

Once I got past judging Paris In Love for what it wasn't, I got around to judging it for what it was. James does not value stability in the same way I do. To me, taking tweenage children (who have recently lost their grandmother then had their mother threatened by the same disease) to a country where they do not speak the language and will almost certainly struggle in the schools is unthinkable. Military obligations aside, the tweenage years are not generally served by upheaval. With the snippet style of recollection, the family life comes across as the things they saw, the things they ate, the homeless they encountered, and the meetings with teachers. While the children eventually adapt, they do so just in time to relocate once again. (I am sure their trilingual abilities will serve them in life, I am sure the breadth of experience they have gained will only benefit. Void where prohibited by law, etc.)

James' way with descriptions and eye for interesting detail save the book from complete tedium. While she makes no revelations about her self or life on the bigger scale her observations of lunch remain compelling enough to keep the pages turning. Paris In Love could be summed up with "I felt lost. I ran away. The hairdressers didn't understand me. The kids were confused. I calmed down. I came back." But I see Paris In Love speaking strongly to a different reader, a reader who wants to sit and dream on a rainy day about a different life. A reader who wonders what it would be like to just toss her cares aside for a year and reinvent herself in another place, without losing the things she loves in her current place. As a wistful daydream Paris In Love works well. I'm just not a daydream kind of girl.