A Welcoming Life: An M.F.K. Fisher Scrapbook

by Dominique Gioia, Dominique Gioia (Compiler)

During the last years of her life, Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher began reflecting aloud over a large collection of old family photos, envisioning a scrapbook of people, places, and times past. This volume showcases these photos, with extended anecdotal captions taken from her published and unpublished writings. 242 photos.

Genres: Food

119 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher is an author famous for her elegant musings on food as an art of life. Some credit her as the beginning of the modern food writing movement. Anyone who is interested in the culture of food, female writers, or just good prose should read her works.

In compiling this book, Dominique Gioia did a remarkable job of letting Fisher herself speak through quotes from her published works and unpublished journals and letters.

My criticisms lie in the book's pat editorial feel- there was little effort to explore controversies within her life (though this could be due less to a flaw in the book and more to my own modern voyeuristic tendencies). I found myself wanting to learn more about the sensational aspects of her life- having a child out of wedlock in the 1940s, being quietly dismissed after teaching for only 6 months at an all-black school during the 60s, an aborted (failed?) attempt to have one of those students live with her in California and study nursing.

Despite the lack of sensationalism, this book is a great beginner's introduction to M.F.K. Fisher, her life, and how it influenced her writings.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and helpful.

[Laura Watt · Rating 5 out of 5]

my great fascination with this writer made this an instant sell to me, a collection of photographs from her life, along with some biographical sketches, quotes, etc. I was greatly surprised (particularly as an avid journal-keeper myself) to learn that at one point in her life, Mary Frances burned many of her earlier journals and letters, in an attempt to move past painful times and start fresh -- but of course later regretted it, as we can't ever completely recreate ourselves, but can only try to bring new freshness into the existing story. She is so inspirational -- makes me want to take a cooking class and try writing more seriously myself. One of these days, perhaps! (1/01)

[Tanner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just want to crawl inside her brain and her life and live there.