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The Taste of Hunger
A family saga about Ukrainian immigrants in the early 20th century, the power of desire, Baba Yaga fairytales, and a moment that changes everything.
In Saskatchewan in the late 1920s, a fifteen-year-old Ukrainian immigrant named Olena is forced into marriage with Taras, a man twice her age, who wants her even though she has refused him. Stuck in a hardscrabble life and with a husband she despises, starved for a life of her own choosing, at every turn Olena rebels against her husband and her fate. As Olena and Taras drag everyone around them into the maelstrom that is their marriage, they set off a chain of turbulent events whose aftershocks reverberate through generations.
In her novel The Taste of Hunger, Barbara Joan Scott masterfully explores the pull of family, the fallout of thwarted desire, and the power of redemption and forgiveness.
In Saskatchewan in the late 1920s, a fifteen-year-old Ukrainian immigrant named Olena is forced into marriage with Taras, a man twice her age, who wants her even though she has refused him. Stuck in a hardscrabble life and with a husband she despises, starved for a life of her own choosing, at every turn Olena rebels against her husband and her fate. As Olena and Taras drag everyone around them into the maelstrom that is their marriage, they set off a chain of turbulent events whose aftershocks reverberate through generations.
In her novel The Taste of Hunger, Barbara Joan Scott masterfully explores the pull of family, the fallout of thwarted desire, and the power of redemption and forgiveness.
307 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2022
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169 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 23, 2022
The heartbreaking catastrophe currently playing out in Ukraine has forced the scattering of that country’s peoples across the globe. But what we see happening in 2022 is only the most recent iteration of an exodus that has been ongoing for centuries: Ukrainians leaving their homeland to escape starvation, conflict and persecution. Barbara Joan Scott’s novel, The Taste of Hunger, set in the early decades of the previous century, is the story of Taras Zalesky, a young Ukrainian immigrant “fleeing the aftermath of the Great War,” whose journey brings him to Canada. In 1926, after an injury puts an end to his tenure working in the Ontario mines, he drifts westward and finds himself in Saskatchewan. Here, a chance encounter with a fellow Ukrainian in a hotel bar determines his future path. The man is fed up working the poor plot of land he received from the government, and Taras is only too willing to take the failing homestead off his hands. While traveling north to his new home, another encounter, this time with a Ukrainian family, further seals Taras’s fate: at a dilapidated farm where he stops for water, he meets 15-year-old Olena, who lives with her drunkard father Metro and her short-tempered aunt Varvara. Olena—smart, beautiful, filled with dreams, longing for an education and a possible life elsewhere—is instead forced by her father to marry Taras Zalesky, who is twice her age, a man of brute instinct and base urges for whom she feels nothing but contempt. Despite their differences, Taras and Olena work hard to carve a life for themselves out of the unpromising Saskatchewan wilderness. But, though dependent on one another for corporeal and spiritual sustenance, there is little affection between them. Years pass, Olena becomes pregnant and gives birth. But she never warms to her husband: he can satisfy her physical needs, but in every other respect she is frustrated and is soon appalled by what she has become. Eventually, they sell their land and move to the town of Eldergrove, where they take over a general store. By this time, they have two children: daughters June and May. The children give Olena purpose, but her hunger for a different kind of life never fades and she is always on the alert in case a means of escape presents itself. For his part, Taras embarks on a series of casual affairs. But, though a serial philanderer, he remains a jealous husband who is tormented by thoughts of his beautiful young wife being unfaithful. Scott’s taut, moving, sometimes brutal narrative, which crosses generations and is told from multiple perspectives, is a tragic tale of two people fatally mismatched but thrust together by circumstance whose moral failings wreak misfortune on all who come within their sphere of influence. At a crucial moment, Taras’s and Olena’s hunger for gratification outside the marriage results in a horrific act of violence, and both are left harboring a dreadful secret. In her debut novel, Barbara Joan Scott tells a story filled with fierce passion, wayward desire and thwarted dreams, a story that skirts the edges of melodrama without making the plunge. The Taste of Hunger also provides a compulsive read and leaves us pondering the darkness that resides in every human heart.
December 15, 2022
I was at a book event a few weeks ago chatting with my bookish friends (usually a mix of publishers, authors and librarians, the best kind of people) when I was introduced to a local author. She pitched her new book to me, which I just had happened to have on my shelf anyway, (one of the perks of being a reviewer!), and she so successfully piqued my interest that I chose to read it soon after. The Taste of Hunger by Calgary author Barbara Joan Scott weaves elements of a few different genres together very well; literary, mystery, historical, even suspense! I’m so grateful I was in the right place at the right time, because this book likely would have languished on my shelf like many others currently are, in fact I just counted 135 books that are awaiting a read and review from hopeful publishers. But! Sometimes fate intervenes to put the right book in the right hands at the right time.
Plot Summary
It’s the 1920s on the Canadian Prairies, 15-year-old Olena is forced into marriage with a man twice her age, Taras. Both are Ukrainian immigrants, hard-working people who develop the parcel of land they live on, creating a homestead that bears their two daughters, June and May. Olena resents her life, wishing she could go to school and move to a city to work, but accepts that opportunities are limited for women like her, and reluctantly builds a life with Taras anyway. Taras is somewhat of a womanizer, shocked that Olena doesn’t fall for him the way most women do, so he often strays from their marriage when he’s in town on one of his buying trips. May and June recognize their parents don’t treat each other the same way other kids parents do, but because they struggle to fit in with other kids, taunted for their accents and poverty, they generally ignore the discontent in their modest home, focused on other things. Both Olena and Taras’s selfish behavior are pushed to the forefront when their actions trigger a shocking mystery that the narrative circles around, until the true reasons behind their shared tragedy are eventually revealed.
My Thoughts
When I spoke to Scott at that event, she mentioned a Baba Yaga-like character appeared in her book, which immediately appealed to me. Baba Yaga is a type of witch that appears in Slavic folklore as a deformed old woman who brings terror and unhappiness to those she crosses. Olena’s aunt Varvara is constantly compared to Baba Yaga, mainly because of the wart on her face and knowledge of plants and natural cures. She never really performs outright magic, but there’s certainly an element of the supernatural surrounding her, which comes in and out of play throughout the story.
There are numerous occasions for tension in this book, many of them arising out of the difficult circumstances each character finds themselves in – none of the family members are truly happy with their life or situation. Varvara encourages the marriage to Taras because she understands the limitations females face at that time. Olena resents Taras, Taras is constantly pining after Olena’s love, June is ostracized by the kids at her school and wishes she could fit in with them, while May is embarrassed by June and longs to escape her parents’ rural ways and mindset. All of these situations are made worse by the fact that they live through the depression, and are seen as outsiders by the other Canadians. Despite these hardships, I wouldn’t say this is a depressing novel, in fact I found it admirable in the ways they all ‘got on with it’. They were deeply unhappy, but they certainly understood their roles and worked within them. This incredible work ethic and acceptance of responsibility is often referred to as “the good old days”, but instead of glorifying this generation, Scott lays bare how deeply unhappy many people truly were, struggling to simply make it one day to the next.
Although we meet each character at a different stage in their lives, I can comfortably call this is a coming-of-age novel. Each develops into their own as we meet them, and many continue to seek their true selves even after their story has been concluded in this book. I’ll think of Olena when I’m tired, stirring a pot of dinner on the stove after a long day of work, knowing there’s been many women before me who have done the same, and thankful for the modern day comforts she wasn’t able to enjoy but I now take for granted. I highly recommend this work of historical fiction, if only to remind you of why we are so lucky to be alive in 2022.
To read the rest of my reviews, please visit my blog:
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Plot Summary
It’s the 1920s on the Canadian Prairies, 15-year-old Olena is forced into marriage with a man twice her age, Taras. Both are Ukrainian immigrants, hard-working people who develop the parcel of land they live on, creating a homestead that bears their two daughters, June and May. Olena resents her life, wishing she could go to school and move to a city to work, but accepts that opportunities are limited for women like her, and reluctantly builds a life with Taras anyway. Taras is somewhat of a womanizer, shocked that Olena doesn’t fall for him the way most women do, so he often strays from their marriage when he’s in town on one of his buying trips. May and June recognize their parents don’t treat each other the same way other kids parents do, but because they struggle to fit in with other kids, taunted for their accents and poverty, they generally ignore the discontent in their modest home, focused on other things. Both Olena and Taras’s selfish behavior are pushed to the forefront when their actions trigger a shocking mystery that the narrative circles around, until the true reasons behind their shared tragedy are eventually revealed.
My Thoughts
When I spoke to Scott at that event, she mentioned a Baba Yaga-like character appeared in her book, which immediately appealed to me. Baba Yaga is a type of witch that appears in Slavic folklore as a deformed old woman who brings terror and unhappiness to those she crosses. Olena’s aunt Varvara is constantly compared to Baba Yaga, mainly because of the wart on her face and knowledge of plants and natural cures. She never really performs outright magic, but there’s certainly an element of the supernatural surrounding her, which comes in and out of play throughout the story.
There are numerous occasions for tension in this book, many of them arising out of the difficult circumstances each character finds themselves in – none of the family members are truly happy with their life or situation. Varvara encourages the marriage to Taras because she understands the limitations females face at that time. Olena resents Taras, Taras is constantly pining after Olena’s love, June is ostracized by the kids at her school and wishes she could fit in with them, while May is embarrassed by June and longs to escape her parents’ rural ways and mindset. All of these situations are made worse by the fact that they live through the depression, and are seen as outsiders by the other Canadians. Despite these hardships, I wouldn’t say this is a depressing novel, in fact I found it admirable in the ways they all ‘got on with it’. They were deeply unhappy, but they certainly understood their roles and worked within them. This incredible work ethic and acceptance of responsibility is often referred to as “the good old days”, but instead of glorifying this generation, Scott lays bare how deeply unhappy many people truly were, struggling to simply make it one day to the next.
Although we meet each character at a different stage in their lives, I can comfortably call this is a coming-of-age novel. Each develops into their own as we meet them, and many continue to seek their true selves even after their story has been concluded in this book. I’ll think of Olena when I’m tired, stirring a pot of dinner on the stove after a long day of work, knowing there’s been many women before me who have done the same, and thankful for the modern day comforts she wasn’t able to enjoy but I now take for granted. I highly recommend this work of historical fiction, if only to remind you of why we are so lucky to be alive in 2022.
To read the rest of my reviews, please visit my blog:
https://ivereadthis.com/
Sign up for my newsletter here: https://ivereadthis.com/subscribe/
Or follow me on social media!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ivereadthis/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ivereadthisblog
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ivereadthis
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD6E...
October 30, 2022
Barbara Joan Scott’s novel The Taste of Hunger is in a sense a quiet book, in which narrative threads are revealed gradually, unhurriedly, but this doesn't mean for one second that the book lacks power. The novel opens in 1926 Saskatchewan, when a Ukrainian family’s circumstances force their 15 year old daughter Olena into marriage to a man twice her age. She must leave one homestead for another, and her view of life is drastically changed. As a girl, “she had seen the ever-receding horizon as freedom, possibility,” but now, she must “come to accept the bitter truth that endless space was a more effective enclosure than any prison wall.”
At the new homestead, more isolated than the last, and with her husband often absent, Olena will raise two daughters, June, and May. Their poverty is acute: “Every so often a man or boy showed up at their door, hat in hand, asking for work or food. Sometimes they stopped mid-sentence when they saw Olena’s and June’s and May’s dresses, all faded to the same uniform grey, the cotton so thin you could see light through it if the sun was bright through the windows.”
Women in this time and place are bound by duty to the land and their husbands, and the duty to oneself--to grow, to sate one’s desires--is forced aside. In The Taste of Hunger the hungers—for life experience beyond the empty drought-ridden prairie landscape that keeps its inhabitants on the edge of despair, for sensory pleasure, for friendship, for food—are deep, and strong.
When, a few years hence, the family moves into town, Olena’s life can change: one day, her senses are reawakened when she hears beautiful music pouring from a hotel window, and the Italian’s singing is “as liquid as the music itself, pouring around her like a stream, tumbling over and around a rock. It became the slickness between her breasts and thighs, part of her rhythmic movement against herself. Olena’s lips parted and the opening of her mouth was only the smallest part of the opening blooming inside her.” And so yes, characters can sometimes find the promise of satiation, openly or in secret, though so much conspires against them.
As we move through time—three generations, through 1926-1949, and space—homesteads, small prairie towns, and a TB sanatorium—readers will be struck by Scott’s tender, nonjudgmental engagement with and affection for her characters, enabling us to rejoice when, so rarely, their hungers are satisfied. For example, consider this: “She had not known until this moment how hungry she was, how tired of being always hard, always cold…..[He] slid into her like a hot knife into butter, her melting vulva slick and smooth around him…. So this is what it means to have a body, she thought, before all thought stopped.” WHEW! And Scott’s descriptions of such sensory pleasures heighten the stark and abiding contrast between drought and abundance. The experiences both good and bad that we have vicariously are heightened by Scott’s concise, meticulous prose, and yet we are not ever distracted by the beauty of the language, but rather are more enthralled.
Barbara Joan Scott is not only a writer, she is also a fine musician and gourmet cook. The exacting attention she pays to her pursuits, her close attention to the details of sights, sounds, rhythms, smells, and tastes are found in quiet abundance in this fine novel, The Taste of Hunger.
At the new homestead, more isolated than the last, and with her husband often absent, Olena will raise two daughters, June, and May. Their poverty is acute: “Every so often a man or boy showed up at their door, hat in hand, asking for work or food. Sometimes they stopped mid-sentence when they saw Olena’s and June’s and May’s dresses, all faded to the same uniform grey, the cotton so thin you could see light through it if the sun was bright through the windows.”
Women in this time and place are bound by duty to the land and their husbands, and the duty to oneself--to grow, to sate one’s desires--is forced aside. In The Taste of Hunger the hungers—for life experience beyond the empty drought-ridden prairie landscape that keeps its inhabitants on the edge of despair, for sensory pleasure, for friendship, for food—are deep, and strong.
When, a few years hence, the family moves into town, Olena’s life can change: one day, her senses are reawakened when she hears beautiful music pouring from a hotel window, and the Italian’s singing is “as liquid as the music itself, pouring around her like a stream, tumbling over and around a rock. It became the slickness between her breasts and thighs, part of her rhythmic movement against herself. Olena’s lips parted and the opening of her mouth was only the smallest part of the opening blooming inside her.” And so yes, characters can sometimes find the promise of satiation, openly or in secret, though so much conspires against them.
As we move through time—three generations, through 1926-1949, and space—homesteads, small prairie towns, and a TB sanatorium—readers will be struck by Scott’s tender, nonjudgmental engagement with and affection for her characters, enabling us to rejoice when, so rarely, their hungers are satisfied. For example, consider this: “She had not known until this moment how hungry she was, how tired of being always hard, always cold…..[He] slid into her like a hot knife into butter, her melting vulva slick and smooth around him…. So this is what it means to have a body, she thought, before all thought stopped.” WHEW! And Scott’s descriptions of such sensory pleasures heighten the stark and abiding contrast between drought and abundance. The experiences both good and bad that we have vicariously are heightened by Scott’s concise, meticulous prose, and yet we are not ever distracted by the beauty of the language, but rather are more enthralled.
Barbara Joan Scott is not only a writer, she is also a fine musician and gourmet cook. The exacting attention she pays to her pursuits, her close attention to the details of sights, sounds, rhythms, smells, and tastes are found in quiet abundance in this fine novel, The Taste of Hunger.
November 19, 2022
Loved it! A great book of multi generations involving loss, sacrifice, love, struggles, victories. A great story with characters to remember.
October 31, 2022
THE TASTE OF HUNGER has the chops to be the next great Canadian (Prairie) novel. This multi-generational novel is set in early 20th-century Saskatchewan and tells the story of Ukrainian immigrants. It is literary, thematically powerful, and perhaps best of all, a compelling, page-turning mystery. The novel begins with Taras, who comes to Canada for the promise of a better life. Instead, he gets locked into a hard-scrabble existence on a harsh landscape in a stratified society that ranks him low. And it's the story of Olena, a young girl with hungers of her own which she is forced to swallow because of the time and place she lives. And it is the story of June – a child born into a loveless marriage, unwanted by her mother and uncertain of her place in the world. THE TASTE OF HUNGER is a compelling read, especially now – with the largest systemic attack on Ukraine since the Holodomor, and another generation of Ukrainians being driven from their homes.
March 11, 2023
I quite enjoyed the book, impressed with the author's interpretation/understanding of what some Ukrainian immigrants experienced on the prairies in the 1920s, thinking of my paternal grandfather (from Ukraine) who came to Canada between WWI and WWII.
A tragic story from start to finish, filled with imperfect individuals, all seeking something that was beyond their grasp, desperate for love and acceptance.
It was great to read a book by an author from Calgary!
A tragic story from start to finish, filled with imperfect individuals, all seeking something that was beyond their grasp, desperate for love and acceptance.
It was great to read a book by an author from Calgary!
December 24, 2023
Not unlike a Shakespearean tragedy, Scott brilliantly pens the story of Ukrainian immigrants in early 20th century Canada. Taras and Oleana’s love-hate relationship is passionate and cruel. It cuts a swath of destruction that affects their children, friends, the entire town. Their hardscrabble life plays out in page after page that fascinated and horrified this reader. This is a truly remarkable novel that I’ll not soon forget.
January 14, 2023
This is a compelling portrayal of early settlers on the Prairie. It is obviously well reasearched and the descriptions are detailed and full of sensory detail. As a reader, I can feel the cold, the heat, and the deprivation. Patriarchy is unrelentingly devastating to the lives of women in this time, and the book portrays this well.
April 24, 2023
This was a book club book, but unfortunately I had to miss the book club discussion. Set in Saskatchewan, starting in the 1920's, covers the hardscrabble life of Ukrainian immigrants. I found some of the history a bit difficult to believe, but I understand that the book was based on real people. insightful. It will be interesting to see what others think of this book.
December 9, 2022
Read it in a single sitting, very few novels surprise me but this left me guessing until the very end. A true modern classic I think everybody should read this story at some point.
December 25, 2022
Powerful. This one will not dim with my memory.
January 3, 2023
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I wanted to keep reading it but just didn’t come together for me.
Read
March 24, 2023Such a wonderful examination of family, immigrant life, the prairies. A very good read.
May 6, 2023
Hard to get into at first but really appreciated how the last few years developed and solved the mystery of Marie.
March 1, 2025
Small but tragic
March 11, 2025
This may be the most depressing book I’ve ever read
October 22, 2022
In revisiting the past as it's never been told before, Barbara Joan Scott's novel The Taste of Hunger explores the lives of Varvara, Olena and June, each confronting the injustices and tragedies visited on them and each gifted with a powerful will to survive and an incredible drive to overcome. A tour de force that cries out to be read.
September 4, 2023
I thought this could have been a great book, but by 70% done I truly wondered and still do if this is an AI written novel. Disjointed and disappointing
Want to read
June 6, 2024Have had e-book for some time, read about 30%, while many other books to read have come in & been read. Ebook will be recalled tomorrow. May finish in the future.
This book has been shortlisted for Canada’s largest Ukrainian-Canadian literary award (winner announced May 21, 2024). The KOBZAR™ Book Award “recognizes outstanding contributions to Canadian literary arts by authors who write on a topic with a tangible connection to Ukrainian Canadians.”
The other shortlisted authors are:
Myrna Kostash with Ghosts in a Photograph
Adrian Lysenko with Five Stalks of Grain (illustrated by Ivanka Theodosia Galadza)
Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch with Winterkill
Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson with Valley of the Birdtail
This book has been shortlisted for Canada’s largest Ukrainian-Canadian literary award (winner announced May 21, 2024). The KOBZAR™ Book Award “recognizes outstanding contributions to Canadian literary arts by authors who write on a topic with a tangible connection to Ukrainian Canadians.”
The other shortlisted authors are:
Myrna Kostash with Ghosts in a Photograph
Adrian Lysenko with Five Stalks of Grain (illustrated by Ivanka Theodosia Galadza)
Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch with Winterkill
Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson with Valley of the Birdtail
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews