Bread: A Memoir of Hunger

by Lisa Knopp

When she was 54, Lisa Knopp’s weight dropped to a number on the scale that she hadn’t seen since seventh grade. The severe food restricting that left her thin and sick when she was 15 and 25 had returned. This time, she was determined to understand the causes of her malady and how she could heal from a condition that is caused by a tangle of genetic, biological, familial, psychological, cultural, and spiritual factors. This compelling memoir, at once a food and illness narrative, explores the forces that cause eating disorders and disordered eating, including the link between those conditions in women, middle-aged and older, and the fear of aging and ageism.

Winner of the 2017 Nebraska Book Award for Memoir

2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

Genres: Nonfiction, Mental Illness, Memoir

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 2016

About the author

Lisa Knopp is the author of six books of creative nonfiction.

Her most recent, Bread: A Memoir of Hunger (University of Missouri Press 2016), explores eating disorders and disordered eating as the result of a complex tangle of genetic, biological, familial, psychology, spiritual, and cultural forces through research and personal story. What the River Carries: Encounters with the Mississippi, Missouri, and Platte (University of Missouri Press) won the Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction in 2013 and was tied for second place in the 2013 ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment) book awards.

Lisa’s essays have appeared in numerous literary publications including Missouri Review, Michigan Review, Iowa Review, Seneca Review, Gettysburg Review, Northwest Review, Cream City Review, Brevity, Connecticut Review, Shenandoah, Creative Nonfiction, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, and Georgia Review. Currently, she's working on a collection of essays called Like Salt or Love: Essays on Leaving home.

Lisa is a Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, where she teaches courses in creative nonfiction. She lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Please visit her website: http://www.lisaknopp.com/

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It’s a razor’s edge I walk. How tempting it is to wolf down this slice and the rest of the loaf. How tempting it is to throw it into the sink as if it’s on fire, douse it with water, and then cram it down the garbage disposal." Dr. Lisa Knopp's book relates her personal struggle to deal with her eating disorder while growing up, raising two children, getting her Ph.d and becoming an accomplished and honored writer and teacher.

Her experiences make compelling reading. I believe personal disclosures of this nature require a vast amount of courage, a desire to understand one's self, and the hope of helping others. Knopp's work mixes her personal experience with her investigations into the literature of the causes of anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating disorder. Beautifully written, her story begins in the late 1950's and describes growing up in small town Iowa during the days of Camelot and the Johnson administration. But Knopp's desire is for a more exciting life and varied cultural experiences.

As her life unfolds, readers become aware of societal pressures and other factors that contribute to her desire to control her weight very strictly and live as a whisper of a woman. Eventually, she realizes that she is putting her health at great risk. In the final chapter, she relates the strategies that she uses to cope with this lurking disorder.

Well worth reading for anyone who has an eating disorder, loves someone with an eating disorder, or as I read it, as a courageous and hard look at how you are living your life. Are you setting yourself up for unhappiness and struggle? Do you have habits and behaviors that are detrimental to your well being? Find the courage to make changes. Be creative and resourceful. Excellent reading.

[Ava Courtney Sylvester · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lost My Appetite

There are a list of quibbling details that irked me throughout the book, such as Knopp's insistence on calling it "my malady" as though she were simultaneously better than and different from those with diagnosed and even subclinical eating disorders while at the same time warping some research findings to suit her experiences. The metaphor of bread was effective when used literally to describe the literal foodstuff but became laughable through the overuse of "white bread" as a pejorative, extended so far one gets the sense that much of her life was spent in opposition to the phrase rather than a genuine interest in pursuing a given career path or relationship. The last niggling complaint is strange to level against an accomplished writer and professor of English, but there were many times in which Knopp's sentences run away from her and lose so much of their clarity that the meaning evaporates as well.

But ultimately? The book's biggest sin is of boredom. It's a chore to get through, and there are better books related to eating disorders in general and among older women in particular. Try "Gaining" by Aimee Liu or "Lying in Weight" by Trisha Gura instead.

[Charlotte Riise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jeg sitter igjen med mange tanker etter endt lesing. Noen av dem kretser rundt hvorfor jeg la fra meg denne boken uferdig i utgangspunktet, og hvorfor jeg er glad jeg plukket den opp igjen.

I starten likte jeg ikke tonen i denne boken. Jeg syntes den fremsto som selvsentrert, og at teksten led av en typisk anorektisk tanke: "Jeg er annerledes, jeg er spesiell, min sykdom er ikke som de andres". Symptomatisk, så klart, men likevel noe som gir en viss avsmak. Det var grunn nok for meg til å legge den fra meg.

Likevel ender denne boken opp som tankevekkende lesing - den er en bok som evner noe jeg savner i mye av tilsvarende litteratur. Forfatteren undersøker spiseforstyrrelsens vilkår og univers utenfor den personlige årsaken/motivasjonen. Selvsagt er den personlige årsaken er sentralt dreiepunkt, men det er ikke alt. At Knopp ser disse komplekse psykiske lidelsene i lys av psykologi og familieforhold er naturlig, men blikket hennes favner også nevrobiologi, genetikk, kultur, politikk, reiligion, sosioøkonomiske forhold, feminisme, aldersdiskriminering. Dette er bokens klare styrke, da disse essayistiske passasjene får frem hva som gjør en spiseforstyrrelse så mangetydig, og hvorfor den lar seg så vanskelig behandle.

Knopp adresserer også en interessant diskrepans mellom forskning, litteratur, folks oppfatning og virkeligheten: Spiseforstyrrelser rammer ikke bare tenåringer og unge, men også voksne og eldre. Dette gapet bidrar til mørketall og feil behandlingstilnærming for mange, ifølge Knopp. Aldersdiskrimineringen sees både som en utløsende faktor og en opprettholdende en, og som med mange andre aspekt ved spiseforstyrrelser, er aldring forbundet med en viss angst og ambivalens.

Alderstematikken, og de politiske betraktningene berører meg sterkere enn si de religiøse, og gir også en dimensjon utover den vanlige familiære tematikken. En lesverdig bok på svært mange måter.

[Renaissancecat22 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it and it was a short enough read that I would recommend it. There are moments that grabbed me and moments that lost me. As far as mental illness and depression/anxiety there were moments I really connected to, more so in the earlier part of the book. I don't think she's a terribly evocative writer though and there's not a lot of poetry or deep insight when she talks about her life. I appreciated a lot of the research that she did into anorexia and some other topics. Overall, there are some good points and the book is short enough that if you read less intently than I do, you can just skim through the parts that aren't as worthwhile. You'll recognize them when you come across them. If I'm nitpicking, a lot of the hippie stuff and religion parts were not for me but unlike other books, I didn't find her ideology oppressive and it didn't inhibit my ability to take things away from the rest of the book.

[Jody Keisner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most perfect examples of a writer weaving research into her personal story. In this case, the story is about Knopp's struggles with disordered eating, or as she refers to it, her "malady," beginning with her youth through middle age. Riveting, informative, insightful--and every page is artfully written.

[Roxanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read about the pressures woman put on themselves, society puts on women, and in particular, what the "older" woman inflicts upon herself as she ages.

[Leda Frost · Rating 3 out of 5]

As soon as I finished this memoir I made dinner, sat down at the kitchen table, and ate so voraciously I bit my fingers and inside of my cheek, twice. That's the power Knopp holds over the language of disordered eating. I felt famished with her as she explored intense periods of food restriction in her teens, twenties, and fifties. In Bread, Knopp carefully crafts such introspective thoughts alongside heaps of research, in a way to better understand her struggles and, I hope, provide insight for people not suffering from such self-imposed restriction to better understand those who are. The book is a fast and engaging read, insightful and smart, well thought out and put together by someone who is obviously a master in the field of Creative Nonfiction. Just be sure you have some bread on hand before opening the book. You'll want it soon after.

[Chris]

"genetics makes the gun, environment loads the gun, and an overwhelming set of emotional circumstances pulls the trigger."
Lisa Knopp includes that quote from Aimee Liu in her well-respected, articulate memoir of her eating disorder.
Knopp condenses the research on eating disorders and disordered eating and it appears alongside her account of her own periods of disordered eating.
Knopp's last episode occurred later in life and Knopp does an unflinching examination of not only her experience, but the cultural experience of women, later in life, still, or newly single, struggling to be perceived still as valuable to and valued by society.
I was captivated by the ordinariness of Knopp's life. Teaching, raising two kids, not life on a razor's edge, but enough to "load the gun" and have a "trigger" pulled. Knopp distinguishes between episodes that happen to her as a child and young people, and those that happen to her, and to others, when older.
This is a valuable book for imparting, not only greater information and understanding about anorexia, bulimia, and related eating disorders, but also, for imparting still needed information and understanding of women in our society, at every age.

[Meg]

Bread as the object, as metaphor, and occasional wordplay. Thoughtful and wonderfully written.