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The Epicure's Lament
For ten years, Hugo Whittier, upper-class scion, former gigolo, failed belle-lettrist has been living a hermit’s existence at Waverly, his family's crumbling mansion overlooking the Hudson. He passes the time reading Montaigne and M.F.K. Fisher, cooking himself delicious meals, smoking an endless number of cigarettes, and nursing a grudge against the world. But his older brother, Dennis, has returned, in retreat from an unhappy marriage, and so has his estranged wife, Sonia, and their (she claims) daughter, Bellatrix, shattering Hugo's cherished solitude. He's also been told by a doctor that he has the rare Buerger's disease, which means that unless he stops smoking he will die--all the more reason for Hugo to light up, because his quarrel with life is bitter and an early death is a most attractive prospect.
As Hugo smokes and cooks and sexually schemes and pokes his perverse nose into other people’s marriages and business, he records these events as well as his mordant, funny, gorgeously articulated personal history and his thoughts on life and mortality in a series of notebooks. His is one of the most perversely compelling literary personalities to inhabit a novel since John Lanchester’s The Debt to Pleasure , and his ancestors include the divinely cracked and eloquent narrators of the works of Nabokov. As snobbish and dislikable as Hugo is, his worldview is so enticingly conveyed that even the most resistant reader will be put under his spell. His insinuating voice gets into your head and under your skin in the most seductive way. And as he prepares what may be his final Christmas feast for family and friends, readers will have to ask, “Is this the end of Hugo?”
The Epicure’s Lament is a wry and witty novel about love and death and family, a major contribution to a vein of literature that the author Kate Christensen has dubbed “loser lit.” It more than fulfills the bright promise of her lavishly praised previous two novels, and gives us an antihero for our time--hard to like, impossible to resist.
As Hugo smokes and cooks and sexually schemes and pokes his perverse nose into other people’s marriages and business, he records these events as well as his mordant, funny, gorgeously articulated personal history and his thoughts on life and mortality in a series of notebooks. His is one of the most perversely compelling literary personalities to inhabit a novel since John Lanchester’s The Debt to Pleasure , and his ancestors include the divinely cracked and eloquent narrators of the works of Nabokov. As snobbish and dislikable as Hugo is, his worldview is so enticingly conveyed that even the most resistant reader will be put under his spell. His insinuating voice gets into your head and under your skin in the most seductive way. And as he prepares what may be his final Christmas feast for family and friends, readers will have to ask, “Is this the end of Hugo?”
The Epicure’s Lament is a wry and witty novel about love and death and family, a major contribution to a vein of literature that the author Kate Christensen has dubbed “loser lit.” It more than fulfills the bright promise of her lavishly praised previous two novels, and gives us an antihero for our time--hard to like, impossible to resist.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published February 17, 2004
84 people are currently reading
2824 people want to read
About the author
Kate Christensen
19 books425 followersKATE CHRISTENSEN is the author of eleven novels, most recently The Arizona Triangle (as Sydney Graves) and Good Company. She has also published two food-centric memoirs. Her fourth novel, The Great Man, won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Her stories, reviews, and essays have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. She lives in northern New Mexico with her husband and their two dogs.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 241 reviews
January 7, 2021
I f***ing loved this book and reading it was a completely immersive experience. It made me love books more which is not a thing a middle aged librarian says nearly ever. The more I analyze it the more confused I am at what enchanted me so much. It is fantastically witty. And the writing made my jaw drop-allusions cleverly twisted, a grasp of high brow and crass, the powerful irony and impossibly uncomfortable situations and every sentence crafted with such detail and love of language- sigh sigh sigh. Humorous, insightful, sensual and acerbic.
The narrator, Hugo, has decided to smoke himself to death and lives alone in his crumbling mansion by the Hudson being an entitled ass. (I bought this early in quarantine after reading about it on a nyt list of books for quarantine then put it aside because I never did get to really quarantine and i was adverse to reading about some whiny trust fund jackass while the world was going to hell in a handbasket but turns out it i was more amenable to it than I thought. )
Hugo is reprehensible, lazy, reclusive. Maybe more so nowadays than when it was written some ten years or so ago, as he loathes children, women to some extent, gays and is a bit haughty when it comes to the lower social classes. Despite his avowed aversions, his steadfast, scathing honesty and relentless self reckoning give him the pardon usually allowed to those who earnestly own their faults. His devotion to food, books, sex and cigarettes and his many contradictions make him a character for the damn ages or at least generation late boomer early x.
His voice is in my head and his ruthless self-inventory made me want to confess, write, tear it all down and mock my shambles. He is so awful and huggable, so sneering and luminous. And the rest of the cast is pretty damn lovable too in their terrible ways. Shlomo the assassin what a guffaw. Stephanie Fox a poor lost cynic herself but my kind of woman almost. And Bellatrix, ha! Such a dark and funny book. Hugo's voice reminded me a wee bit of Ian McEwan's delightfully smarmy fetus in Nutshell but this is the whole damn tree and a squirrel too. I feel like if I met a Hugo in real life, I would not know whether to roll my eyes or squirm. It would not be comfortable. I am not sure if I liked the fourth notebook and I wonder if that was part of the plan all along or if there was some uncertainty about it. I don't know if liking Hugo makes me a bad person. I wonder if I will love this book for a long time or if I will change my mind. Suffice to say, wow.
The narrator, Hugo, has decided to smoke himself to death and lives alone in his crumbling mansion by the Hudson being an entitled ass. (I bought this early in quarantine after reading about it on a nyt list of books for quarantine then put it aside because I never did get to really quarantine and i was adverse to reading about some whiny trust fund jackass while the world was going to hell in a handbasket but turns out it i was more amenable to it than I thought. )
Hugo is reprehensible, lazy, reclusive. Maybe more so nowadays than when it was written some ten years or so ago, as he loathes children, women to some extent, gays and is a bit haughty when it comes to the lower social classes. Despite his avowed aversions, his steadfast, scathing honesty and relentless self reckoning give him the pardon usually allowed to those who earnestly own their faults. His devotion to food, books, sex and cigarettes and his many contradictions make him a character for the damn ages or at least generation late boomer early x.
His voice is in my head and his ruthless self-inventory made me want to confess, write, tear it all down and mock my shambles. He is so awful and huggable, so sneering and luminous. And the rest of the cast is pretty damn lovable too in their terrible ways. Shlomo the assassin what a guffaw. Stephanie Fox a poor lost cynic herself but my kind of woman almost. And Bellatrix, ha! Such a dark and funny book. Hugo's voice reminded me a wee bit of Ian McEwan's delightfully smarmy fetus in Nutshell but this is the whole damn tree and a squirrel too. I feel like if I met a Hugo in real life, I would not know whether to roll my eyes or squirm. It would not be comfortable. I am not sure if I liked the fourth notebook and I wonder if that was part of the plan all along or if there was some uncertainty about it. I don't know if liking Hugo makes me a bad person. I wonder if I will love this book for a long time or if I will change my mind. Suffice to say, wow.
December 17, 2017
This book was hilarious. Steeped in gallows humor, Hugo Whittier sneers his way through life, a hedonistic curmudgeon who charmingly attempts to seduce nearly every woman who crosses his path, all while drinking and smoking himself into oblivion. He truly is the definition of someone who DGAF, and his complete unwillingness to censor himself, his biting wit, or his unyielding misanthropy, makes him a remarkable and memorable character.
Leaving my corpse for others to dispose of, struck me then and strikes me now as not the most festive, Christmassy thing to do.
I watched her with admiration, and her fellow gamblers with the usual loathing and disdain I feel whenever I'm surrounded by strangers, misshapen, fat, stupid, boring hordes with their outfits and hairdos and quirks and hangups, all certain they're original, essential to everything, the center of the universe, all equally grasping, gluttonous, wasteful, misguided, pointless, and disgusting.
Leaving my corpse for others to dispose of, struck me then and strikes me now as not the most festive, Christmassy thing to do.
I watched her with admiration, and her fellow gamblers with the usual loathing and disdain I feel whenever I'm surrounded by strangers, misshapen, fat, stupid, boring hordes with their outfits and hairdos and quirks and hangups, all certain they're original, essential to everything, the center of the universe, all equally grasping, gluttonous, wasteful, misguided, pointless, and disgusting.
July 4, 2020
I'm not entirely sure how to rate Kate Christensen's The Epicure's Lament. On the one hand, Christensen employs some of the most stunningly rendered prose it has ever been my privilege to read. She uses words to paint pictures and creates beautiful, relatable ideas in only a handful of sentences. But that beauty in writing was undone by a complete lack of plot and one of the most repellent protagonists ever put to paper.
Hugo is well-written, and a fascinatingly unreliable narrator. We only get his point of view, which is unashamedly biased, but because of that, we are also treated to self-involved monologuing, and page after page of grandiose boasting about his sexual exploits. There was a lot of repetition of ideas. Hugo spends the whole book cooking, fucking, and being generally dickish to everyone, which was fun and interesting for a while, but got a bit samey by the end.
Where the book really picked up was the 75% mark, and I found myself a little more invested in Hugo and his cast of characters. As the book culminates with a Christmas meal, in which all the characters gather, and Hugo gets to reflect on all the people who have forced themselves into his self-imposed exile, the book comes to a lovely, heartfelt, poignant, and thoroughly satisfying conclusion.
Then Christensen keeps writing.
I have no idea what the decision was behind Notebook 4, but it was utterly redundant and undid all of the excellent work and perfect prose that had come before.
For future readers of The Epicure's Lament, as soon as you see the words Notebook 4, stop reading. The additional text adds nothing to the narrative, and you'll feel a lot more satisfied with this book if you pretend it ends earlier.
Hugo is well-written, and a fascinatingly unreliable narrator. We only get his point of view, which is unashamedly biased, but because of that, we are also treated to self-involved monologuing, and page after page of grandiose boasting about his sexual exploits. There was a lot of repetition of ideas. Hugo spends the whole book cooking, fucking, and being generally dickish to everyone, which was fun and interesting for a while, but got a bit samey by the end.
Where the book really picked up was the 75% mark, and I found myself a little more invested in Hugo and his cast of characters. As the book culminates with a Christmas meal, in which all the characters gather, and Hugo gets to reflect on all the people who have forced themselves into his self-imposed exile, the book comes to a lovely, heartfelt, poignant, and thoroughly satisfying conclusion.
Then Christensen keeps writing.
I have no idea what the decision was behind Notebook 4, but it was utterly redundant and undid all of the excellent work and perfect prose that had come before.
For future readers of The Epicure's Lament, as soon as you see the words Notebook 4, stop reading. The additional text adds nothing to the narrative, and you'll feel a lot more satisfied with this book if you pretend it ends earlier.
August 11, 2021
I have decided to drop this novel because life is too short to read a book that's considered highbrow "literature" because the author made the brave and bold choice to make the protagonist an ass. I love a dark comedy, especially one written by a woman, which is why this incredibly hard to find book has been on my list for so long. And this book does have funny moments. Occasionally a line was so trite and observed I snorted a little. And so I continued to slog, thinking the book would pick up! I even brought it on vacation, because that's a condition that will normally force me to finish even the driest tome, but instead I found myself depressed on a sun-soaked beach. I can find nothing this novel attempts that Lolita didn't already succeed at, and I hate Lolita.
June 3, 2013
Forty-year-old Hugo Whittier loves Montaigne, sex, food, cooking, and his high brow man cave at Waverly, his family's down-on-its-heels Hudson River estate. Hugo also loves the cigarettes that are exacerbating his fatal disease. In the face of the end, Hugo chain smokes and scribbles his life, present and past, into a series of notebooks. There's a lot to record--a lot's happening on his way out. His brother Dennis is longing for another woman, who is cheating on her husband with Hugo. Hugo's lover's husband has a shameful secret that Hugo has to grapple with now that his long estranged wife's back in town with a young daughter, who may or may not be his, in tow. A lot of fun to unpack here. This book will make you smarter. Five stars, hands down.
May 31, 2014
Kate Christensen is an extraordinarily talented writer. While this book is by no means perfect, I gave it five stars because, when she's in the pocket, her prose swings like a gate.* The Epicure's Lament takes its crabby place in the estimable tradition of misanthropic curmudgeon novels such as Confederacy of Dunces, The Debt to Pleasure and, most exquisitely notably, Lolita. Hugo Whittier is an idle, antisocial gastronome, holed up in his family's ancestral mansion, smoking himself to death (more quickly than most of us smokers do - he suffers from Buerger's disease‡) and doing his best to avoid all human contact except for the occasional casual sexual liaison and the oddly flirtatious rapport he develops with the teenage convenience store clerk from whom he buys his cigarettes.
The plot, driven by all the pesky people (his brother, his wife, his putative daughter, his "Fag Uncle Tommy") who won't leave Hugo alone with his books, his cooking and his smokes, is very predictable (think a toned-down version of "Scrooge's Christmas morning redemption" - I'm sorry, was that a spoiler? Did you really not see it coming?) in a commercial lit-fic kinda way, but I long ago realized I don't really care what happens in novels. I want engaging language and people I enjoy hanging out with, and Hugo is, most decidedly, my kinda peeps.
* "My generation is a sudden tail-end-of-the-Boom dip on the population explosion graph, the unprepossessing trough characterized only by a shared generalized nostalgia for some America that almost but never quite existed - I envision us as a tiny tribe of isolates scattered around the coasts, clinging to the edges like aliens yearning for some golden, decadent, hot-browed era of martinis and Louis Prima and Harlem midnight suppers, apothecaries selling morphine-laced beverages, wooden dice rolling on deep-green baize, that zingy old New York pulse and frizzle, sad gas stations out west we drive up to in our roadsters and Thunderbird convertibles, to refill our tanks for fifteen cents a gallon and move on from, leave behind in red dust, Shell sign flapping in hot wind, on our way to Palm Springs to shack up in some turquoise geometric motel with intergalactic decor and a butterfly-shaped pool, drinking gin and fresh orange juice and smoking Luckys and solving murders and eating ham sandwiches at 3 a.m...We live in our own romance stories detective novels, noir films, all that jazz."
‡ a painful, fatal condition for recalcitrant smokers like Hugo and Alfred Fisher, the husband of Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, on whom [Mary Frances], along with Michel de Montaigne, Hugo has a powerful and very charming - his admiration and excitement keep poking through his jaded pose - intellectual crush.
The plot, driven by all the pesky people (his brother, his wife, his putative daughter, his "Fag Uncle Tommy") who won't leave Hugo alone with his books, his cooking and his smokes, is very predictable (think a toned-down version of "Scrooge's Christmas morning redemption" - I'm sorry, was that a spoiler? Did you really not see it coming?) in a commercial lit-fic kinda way, but I long ago realized I don't really care what happens in novels. I want engaging language and people I enjoy hanging out with, and Hugo is, most decidedly, my kinda peeps.
* "My generation is a sudden tail-end-of-the-Boom dip on the population explosion graph, the unprepossessing trough characterized only by a shared generalized nostalgia for some America that almost but never quite existed - I envision us as a tiny tribe of isolates scattered around the coasts, clinging to the edges like aliens yearning for some golden, decadent, hot-browed era of martinis and Louis Prima and Harlem midnight suppers, apothecaries selling morphine-laced beverages, wooden dice rolling on deep-green baize, that zingy old New York pulse and frizzle, sad gas stations out west we drive up to in our roadsters and Thunderbird convertibles, to refill our tanks for fifteen cents a gallon and move on from, leave behind in red dust, Shell sign flapping in hot wind, on our way to Palm Springs to shack up in some turquoise geometric motel with intergalactic decor and a butterfly-shaped pool, drinking gin and fresh orange juice and smoking Luckys and solving murders and eating ham sandwiches at 3 a.m...We live in our own romance stories detective novels, noir films, all that jazz."
‡ a painful, fatal condition for recalcitrant smokers like Hugo and Alfred Fisher, the husband of Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, on whom [Mary Frances], along with Michel de Montaigne, Hugo has a powerful and very charming - his admiration and excitement keep poking through his jaded pose - intellectual crush.
July 6, 2011
Ugh..I wrote a decently long review and Goodreads didn't save it. Suffice it to say that I thought the writing of this novel was better than average but it lost me at the ending. Also, I'm the type of person who tends to have to like the protagonist in fiction novels and I found the charisma of this man to be too manipulative and even pathetic.
Some great things about the main character is that he's a misanthrope and has a dark sort of wit about him. He tends to be brutally honest about relationships and intimacy in his journals, which is how we learn about him and what's happening. There's nothing wrong with that except for his bluntly obvious double standards and homophobia that comes in at the end.
The main character is also actively engaging in a sort of long term suicide as he has Buerger's disease mainly caused by persistent smoking but won't give this up. It's an interesting aspect and adds a bit of complexity but I still just didn't find this man likable.
Another positive of the book is that it deals well with different relationships. both intimate and in the family. It takes place in a rural area set apart from NYC and in this wealthy family home that has been passed down and inherited by the protagonist and his brother. Again, this book has some positives but I ended up disliking the main character and hating the ending so I can't seem to rate it any higher than this.
Some great things about the main character is that he's a misanthrope and has a dark sort of wit about him. He tends to be brutally honest about relationships and intimacy in his journals, which is how we learn about him and what's happening. There's nothing wrong with that except for his bluntly obvious double standards and homophobia that comes in at the end.
The main character is also actively engaging in a sort of long term suicide as he has Buerger's disease mainly caused by persistent smoking but won't give this up. It's an interesting aspect and adds a bit of complexity but I still just didn't find this man likable.
Another positive of the book is that it deals well with different relationships. both intimate and in the family. It takes place in a rural area set apart from NYC and in this wealthy family home that has been passed down and inherited by the protagonist and his brother. Again, this book has some positives but I ended up disliking the main character and hating the ending so I can't seem to rate it any higher than this.
January 4, 2019
As with most 5-star books, it's hard to articulate why I loved this so, so much (just realized my 5-star reviews are the most moronic). There is something about Hugo that is so starkly, unhypocritically human that I felt so much pathos for him as protagonist and not anti-hero. Christensen conveyed his voice almost perfectly. There were a couple moments where I thought his better angels were winning in an unrealistic fashion, but then I realized that human nature also means becoming invested in others despite best efforts not to. The tiny amount of character development felt just right, because I'm a firm believer that people don't change. Also will someone please make me some nettle soup.
February 21, 2017
I have mixed feelings about this book. I loved the rich prose, the high-level vocabulary and beautiful descriptions and literary references, but I expected Hugo to be more wry and sarcastically funny. Instead I found him to be a bitter, angry person with few redeeming qualities. I did not feel a connection to either Hugo or any of the other characters. There seemed a big disconnect to me between the quality of the prose and the quality of plot and character development. I really expected to like this book more than I did. I was pleased with the ending.
December 20, 2015
ok. The protagonist is a real ass. Just a bad human. And so are the other people around him, something that is explored in elegant detail. Its painful, right up to the end. And then it starts to come together. They become human; they evolve. In the story there is redemption, and insight that leads to reader in the direction of (some) compassion and understanding. For all of that, just a really good read.
March 26, 2008
A protagonist as neurotic as Niles and as sex-obsessed as Jack of Sideways, and a gourmet cook, to boot. What's not to like? Seriously, all the characters are well-developed and individual (with the possible exception of Schlomo) and the story is very compelling. I enjoyed this a lot, and found much to relate to. I'll be looking for Kate Christensen's other books.
June 22, 2009
Review
Not nearly as good as The Great Man. Occasional sparks, yes, but ultimately more tiresome than anything else.
Not nearly as good as The Great Man. Occasional sparks, yes, but ultimately more tiresome than anything else.
June 28, 2008
Cantankerous and funny. Every time Kate Christiansen puts a book out, I read it very quickly. My favorite goto for light fare.
Read
March 11, 202550 page rule. DNF
November 16, 2021
I just could not finish this book. I was simply bored with the protagonist. I can do some dark humor, but this began to feel gratuitous. I was asking "what is the point?"
December 10, 2025
A great Christmas novel. Some real goofball shit. I love it!
November 16, 2024
This is an incredibly funny, well observed and highly entertaining book. Hugo Whittier is a real gem of a comic character, awful, incredibly hard to like but in ways also identifiable and redeemable.
April 20, 2011
How can one even begin to describe the symphony of words and ideas that this brilliant author has woven into a magnificent tale of life, love and the true meaning of having control over any of it? It's books such as this one that move me, they make my insides tremble and hands shake in anticipation of what is going to happen next. Even before I got to the end it struck me that this was the best book I have ever read, my favorite novel; spicy, cynical, opulent, and extremely witty. I guess I can sympathize with the main character, Hugo Whitter, a writer and self proclaimed hermit, lover of solitude because I used to feel the same way growing up. I wanted to be left alone to read and write and to lose myself in my own thoughts, I never ended up living in the desert, might have something to do with the fact that I love cold weather, but I could clearly see Hugo's reluctance to let his friends and family back into his life, or what was left of it to enjoy what ever desires he decided to indulge in, mostly staring at the trees outside his window, cooking grand meals, writing in his journal and courting women that perhaps were not really his to have.
This is a very luxurious and sensuous book, marred with ideas and desires of infinite proportions.
Hugo Witter is an old man inside a still young to the world forty year old body, suffering from an addiction to smoking which is killing him through Buerger's disease as its speedily threatening to claim his life. With each chapter the reader gets an urgent sense that Hugo's time is running out, he's unhappily welcoming his brother Dennis back to their childhood home after a stormy disruption of his marriage, his estranged wife Sonia and possibly not really his child Bellatrix are looming on the horizon with a visit, first one in ten years and his own love life is tangled up between female acquaintances and wives of people he can't stand. Disrupted from his peaceful life he stirs up plenty of heat between the family members, trying to get them out of his life, instead getting more and more involved with the outside world and the yearning for self imposed eternal released of this burden called life. Blatantly honest, raw and lovable, Hugo is a flawed but a charismatic and charming character, I was blown away by the sheer fact that the author who created such a strong man is indeed a woman, one that made this family black sheep into one of my favorite literary characters of all time. As the family ties get more complicated with Hugo's involvement the reader starts dreading his open talks about suicide, and the unnerving way in which he starts to plan his departure, the last meal, last family gathering with cool blood and lack of dramatization. It's almost unbearable until the end comes, I was stunned and fulfilled by it, only feeling devastated that the book was over.
The writing is refreshing, interesting and it fed my mind the entire time I was plugged into the book. I may need to read it again very soon or I will seriously have Hugo withdrawals, the things he said and thought of were mind bogging and magnificent. I laughed a lot and also gasped but this book rocked, there was no descriptive filler, the words were jewels and pearls and each as rich as the next. Reviewing this book is almost impossible, to say what this book meant to me would take ages but I'm in total awe of this author now; I hope she will continue her career as a writer for as long as possible, she's my new hero. This book might not be for everyone but that is perfectly fine with me, it's subtle with the plot but so rich in actions and words spoken, there is no transparency and clichés here but pure genius, if you see it then you're lucky, enjoy!
- Kasia S.
This is a very luxurious and sensuous book, marred with ideas and desires of infinite proportions.
Hugo Witter is an old man inside a still young to the world forty year old body, suffering from an addiction to smoking which is killing him through Buerger's disease as its speedily threatening to claim his life. With each chapter the reader gets an urgent sense that Hugo's time is running out, he's unhappily welcoming his brother Dennis back to their childhood home after a stormy disruption of his marriage, his estranged wife Sonia and possibly not really his child Bellatrix are looming on the horizon with a visit, first one in ten years and his own love life is tangled up between female acquaintances and wives of people he can't stand. Disrupted from his peaceful life he stirs up plenty of heat between the family members, trying to get them out of his life, instead getting more and more involved with the outside world and the yearning for self imposed eternal released of this burden called life. Blatantly honest, raw and lovable, Hugo is a flawed but a charismatic and charming character, I was blown away by the sheer fact that the author who created such a strong man is indeed a woman, one that made this family black sheep into one of my favorite literary characters of all time. As the family ties get more complicated with Hugo's involvement the reader starts dreading his open talks about suicide, and the unnerving way in which he starts to plan his departure, the last meal, last family gathering with cool blood and lack of dramatization. It's almost unbearable until the end comes, I was stunned and fulfilled by it, only feeling devastated that the book was over.
The writing is refreshing, interesting and it fed my mind the entire time I was plugged into the book. I may need to read it again very soon or I will seriously have Hugo withdrawals, the things he said and thought of were mind bogging and magnificent. I laughed a lot and also gasped but this book rocked, there was no descriptive filler, the words were jewels and pearls and each as rich as the next. Reviewing this book is almost impossible, to say what this book meant to me would take ages but I'm in total awe of this author now; I hope she will continue her career as a writer for as long as possible, she's my new hero. This book might not be for everyone but that is perfectly fine with me, it's subtle with the plot but so rich in actions and words spoken, there is no transparency and clichés here but pure genius, if you see it then you're lucky, enjoy!
- Kasia S.
March 27, 2013
I found Kate Christensen through a link to her blog from some long forgotten web-surfing session, and I've been hooked ever since. The way the woman talks about food - I think about and mull it over long after I've read it, which in this day and age of constant sensory overload, is something. This book takes the best of her food writing and combines it with some annoying, contradictory, aggravating people and of course makes me fall in love with all of them. Very recommended.
*But Dennis is down there in the kitchen, all chipper and clean-shaven and wanting to talk to me. There's nothing I dread and resent more first thing in the morning than the double-headed monstrous hydra of obligatory pleasantries. It makes me want to bash his head in with a tire iron. As long as he's here, my life is ruined. Not to put too fine a point on it.*
*Dennis is always a bit thick when you catch him off guard with unexpected information about any goings-on that don't directly involve him. I often suspect that he imagines the world is a dark stage on which he himself is the sole spotlit actor.*
*If the line between sex and food is fine, the one between cooking and murder is finer still.*
*The willows at the foot of the lawn looked exhausted this morning, like the unwashed hair of overworked waitresses; the river had that glum, pissy look it gets sometimes, as if it were just sick of running along in the same old goddamned riverbed, century in, century out.*
*But Dennis is down there in the kitchen, all chipper and clean-shaven and wanting to talk to me. There's nothing I dread and resent more first thing in the morning than the double-headed monstrous hydra of obligatory pleasantries. It makes me want to bash his head in with a tire iron. As long as he's here, my life is ruined. Not to put too fine a point on it.*
*Dennis is always a bit thick when you catch him off guard with unexpected information about any goings-on that don't directly involve him. I often suspect that he imagines the world is a dark stage on which he himself is the sole spotlit actor.*
*If the line between sex and food is fine, the one between cooking and murder is finer still.*
*The willows at the foot of the lawn looked exhausted this morning, like the unwashed hair of overworked waitresses; the river had that glum, pissy look it gets sometimes, as if it were just sick of running along in the same old goddamned riverbed, century in, century out.*
March 23, 2009
The character of Hugo Whittier has to be one of the great fictional creations, a real nasty piece of work but still strangely likeable. He's a forty-year-old failed poet and essayist whose life gave him enough ill turns--a lousy childhood, a cheating wife--that he's closed himself up in the family estate and decided to smoke himself to death. He loves Montaigne, M.F.K. Fisher, cooking, eating, and sex, but not enough to stay around.
When his older brother, a solid, duty-bound type thrown into a tailspin by his own marital problems, returns to the house as well, Hugo's plans to quietly kill himself are greatly complicated. There are a flurry of affairs, a potential child molester, a mostly-retired hitman, an odd assortment of potential girlfriends for Hugo, and a gay uncle thrown into the mix. Christensen will keep you guessing throughout the novel where the story of Hugo and his large dysfunctional "family" are going.
In the end, I can't help thinking that the story here is more than a bit improbable, but Hugo's voice, that of a kind of wannabe-Humbert Humbert, is so well executed that it makes it all work. The plot is improbable in the way that life itself so often feels improbable. The fact that this is pulled off by a writer of the opposite sex makes the book that much more remarkable.
When his older brother, a solid, duty-bound type thrown into a tailspin by his own marital problems, returns to the house as well, Hugo's plans to quietly kill himself are greatly complicated. There are a flurry of affairs, a potential child molester, a mostly-retired hitman, an odd assortment of potential girlfriends for Hugo, and a gay uncle thrown into the mix. Christensen will keep you guessing throughout the novel where the story of Hugo and his large dysfunctional "family" are going.
In the end, I can't help thinking that the story here is more than a bit improbable, but Hugo's voice, that of a kind of wannabe-Humbert Humbert, is so well executed that it makes it all work. The plot is improbable in the way that life itself so often feels improbable. The fact that this is pulled off by a writer of the opposite sex makes the book that much more remarkable.
July 23, 2012
Tara recommended this to me, being a fellow epicure and snark-dispenser, and I am glad she did.
I know Hugo is supposed to be a pretentious, curmudgeonly anti-hero, but he's a hero to me: all he wants is great food, great reading, organization, sex, and solitude, with a bit of shit-disturbing thrown in for good measure. (He's an angry Frasier Crane.) Then various interlopers intrude on his (apparent) final days, meddling and muddling up his business. LET HIM EAT HIS BROCCOLI RABE IN PEACE, PEOPLE.
I loved Hugo's brazen way of telling people to eff right off, and I loved Bellatrix's quietly sharp way of ingratiating herself into Hugo's life, despite his reservations. The other supporting characters, with the exception of Bun, were all people I recognized from my own life. Every character underwent some sort of development, which kept it interesting even if I hated them (DENNIS).
It took me a good 75 pages to really get into the book, but once I did, I couldn't put it down, even to see Batman. (My righteous indignance toward everyone intruding on Hugo's peace and quiet knew no bounds.) If you like food and solitude, you're going to like this book.
I know Hugo is supposed to be a pretentious, curmudgeonly anti-hero, but he's a hero to me: all he wants is great food, great reading, organization, sex, and solitude, with a bit of shit-disturbing thrown in for good measure. (He's an angry Frasier Crane.) Then various interlopers intrude on his (apparent) final days, meddling and muddling up his business. LET HIM EAT HIS BROCCOLI RABE IN PEACE, PEOPLE.
I loved Hugo's brazen way of telling people to eff right off, and I loved Bellatrix's quietly sharp way of ingratiating herself into Hugo's life, despite his reservations. The other supporting characters, with the exception of Bun, were all people I recognized from my own life. Every character underwent some sort of development, which kept it interesting even if I hated them (DENNIS).
It took me a good 75 pages to really get into the book, but once I did, I couldn't put it down, even to see Batman. (My righteous indignance toward everyone intruding on Hugo's peace and quiet knew no bounds.) If you like food and solitude, you're going to like this book.
May 24, 2008
I freely admit that the protagonist of this book may not charm everyone the way he did me. On the surface of it, Hugo Whittier is a difficult character to love. An irascible, misanthropic hermit with alcoholic tendencies and a smoking habit that is killing him, Hugo finds his happy solitude at the decaying family mansion on the Hudson River disrupted when his much-loathed older brother and his estranged wife and daughter return to live with him.
Family drama, black-belt level passive aggression, and hi-jinks ensue! And through it all, Hugo cooks many a gourmet meal.
This quirky, charming, and ultimately quite touching book is one of the more delightful contemporary novels I have read for a long time. I highly recommend it.
Family drama, black-belt level passive aggression, and hi-jinks ensue! And through it all, Hugo cooks many a gourmet meal.
This quirky, charming, and ultimately quite touching book is one of the more delightful contemporary novels I have read for a long time. I highly recommend it.
September 14, 2014
I had no real expectations of any kind for this book, but it turns out I liked it quite a bit. The writing in particular.
Ostensibly, the metaphor is about food (well, and smoking), but the dominant theme was actually something more like putrescence, or over-ripeness, or fermentation. Even his regular meals are not what I would call high end: the pleasures the greasy diner also figure large. So on the food front, not necessarily what I was expecting.
I am also docking a star for the happy and hopeful ending. I liked my misanthrope damaged and bitter, thanks.
Still, on the whole, I think I would seek out other books by this author, who does appear to care greatly about how something is written.
Ostensibly, the metaphor is about food (well, and smoking), but the dominant theme was actually something more like putrescence, or over-ripeness, or fermentation. Even his regular meals are not what I would call high end: the pleasures the greasy diner also figure large. So on the food front, not necessarily what I was expecting.
I am also docking a star for the happy and hopeful ending. I liked my misanthrope damaged and bitter, thanks.
Still, on the whole, I think I would seek out other books by this author, who does appear to care greatly about how something is written.
July 24, 2011
The other readers on Visual Bookshelf gave this very mixed reviews probably because the several of the characters are not terribly symphathetic. However, Hugo, the main character, rung true to me. He prefers his own company to that of others, choosing a good book, a fine meal, an aged whiskey to the mindless social exchanges required of everyday interaction. Sure, he takes his misanthrophy and isolation to an extreme, but, hey, we all have our issues... This book is loaded with dark humor and some pretty interesting ideas, but is not for all. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
November 17, 2018
Some parts strained my credulity and sometimes the writer got very writer-y, but overall it was pretty good. Main character is a huge asshole with dying of a terminal disease after pushing everyone out of his life and everyone including his estranged wife come crashing back into his life. Parts are funny, and the plot is pretty good, though some scenes in today’s “me too” moment feel very uncomfortable.
August 8, 2013
Perfect. Smart and snarky and pungent. Hugo is a snarly old delight.
May 29, 2015
Good writing, but I had trouble liking a single character in this story. After dragging myself through three-fourths of the book, I started to like it...just a little. Maybe not enough.
February 24, 2022
I alternately loved and hated the story and characters but ultimately could not bring myself to finish it.
August 12, 2022
A thoroughly despicable character...a labor to read.
September 12, 2019
This book is in the form of diary entries of a New York blue blood named Hugo. Hugo inhabits his family's Hudson River estate and lives off his moderate inherited wealth. He engages in the full-time pursuit of self-centered pleasures derived from food, sex, alcohol, and cigarettes. At middle age, he is self-destructive to the point of being suicidal, yet he seems on the surface to be perfectly content to smoke himself to death.
Hugo has enough good looks, money, and education to charm women, including his estranged wife who had a child before moving to New York City. The big old house where Hugo lives is large enough to accommodate many people, and Hugo's wife, uncle, and brother (Dennis) stay at the house to the dismay of Hugo, who prefers his own company.
Dennis and his wife are friends with another couple, and Dennis' children, and Dennis' wife's sister and au pair are also characters in this story, as well as the girl who works at the Stewarts where Hugo buys his cigarettes and an orthodox Jewish hit man. There are dinner parties, dalliances, and adulterous affairs, leading up to a Christmas party with most of the characters.
Some might dismiss this book as an extended diatribe by a white man of privilege, but I think that might be missing the point, since the author of the book is female. Hugo's psychology is at least partly attributable to his upbringing by a strict, ascetic, kooky mom and his family's housekeeper after his father was killed at a young age in Vietnam.
It's possible to think of the author as a modern-day Montaigne or Epicurus, but Hugo's ideas seem to me to be a lot less profound. I thought the book was funny and entertaining and I enjoyed reading it, but it is a black comedy from the perspective of an existential nihilist.
It seems like there's a connection/correlation between people who have personalities that are creative and artistic and people who are depressed or have some kind of death-wish. Perhaps this book is also about that.
Hugo has enough good looks, money, and education to charm women, including his estranged wife who had a child before moving to New York City. The big old house where Hugo lives is large enough to accommodate many people, and Hugo's wife, uncle, and brother (Dennis) stay at the house to the dismay of Hugo, who prefers his own company.
Dennis and his wife are friends with another couple, and Dennis' children, and Dennis' wife's sister and au pair are also characters in this story, as well as the girl who works at the Stewarts where Hugo buys his cigarettes and an orthodox Jewish hit man. There are dinner parties, dalliances, and adulterous affairs, leading up to a Christmas party with most of the characters.
Some might dismiss this book as an extended diatribe by a white man of privilege, but I think that might be missing the point, since the author of the book is female. Hugo's psychology is at least partly attributable to his upbringing by a strict, ascetic, kooky mom and his family's housekeeper after his father was killed at a young age in Vietnam.
It's possible to think of the author as a modern-day Montaigne or Epicurus, but Hugo's ideas seem to me to be a lot less profound. I thought the book was funny and entertaining and I enjoyed reading it, but it is a black comedy from the perspective of an existential nihilist.
It seems like there's a connection/correlation between people who have personalities that are creative and artistic and people who are depressed or have some kind of death-wish. Perhaps this book is also about that.
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