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In Julie Powell’s ‘Cleaving,’ more marital misery than meat
Powell’s first book chronicled her attempt to pull herself out of a mid-life slump by cooking — and blogging about — every recipe in Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” The book was sassy, but fun and entertaining to read. “Cleaving,” on the other hand, is a dark look into Powell’s affair-ridden marriage, told as she sets out on another culinary adventure: to become a butcher.
The Austin High School graduate talked about this “darker, more personal” book when I interviewed her in August for a profile on her that was published around the time the movie debuted.
“It’s about butchery in the same way that ‘Julie and Julie’ is about Julia (Child),” she said. “It was a dark period in my marriage…I kinda had to do it. It was my digestion of the entire experience…By the time I got through to the end, I was able to approach the entire experience from a place of generosity and understanding. It wasn’t coming from anger or spite,” she says.
By the end of the book, it was easier to tell that she and her husband had processed the myriad infidelities, most notably a two-year affair with a man Powell refers to a “D” in most of the book.
Although the book ends with a revived passion for her husband, the lewd details of her affair are difficult to read, especially for fans of the first book. In “Julie and Julia” (both the book and the movie), we fall in love with her husband, Eric, a fellow former Austinite, who is patient, witty and sensitive, the calm to her crazy. She went to such great detail to portray him as the near-perfect mate, it’s hard to have sympathy for her when she falls (back) in love with a fling — or at least his preference for S&M sex — from college.
Marriage isn’t perfect, and Lord knows we need more realistic looks at what and what does not constitute a modern marriage, but there’s something to be said about modesty when it comes to writing about extramarital sex, the painful details of which I’m too embarrassed for her to share, just in case her family or friends are reading this blog.
I loved the parts of the book where she’s learning how to butcher like the boys at Fleisher’s butcher shop in Kingston, New York. The cold of the meat, her weary muscles, the boisterous banter in the store; Powell is a solid writer, but she could have used a little editing to pare down the endless pages filled with Buffy the Vampire references or scenes where she’s anticipating the buzz of her phone, which meant a racy text from her lover, or downing yet another bottle of wine alone after work.
The final third of the book becomes a travel memoir as she visits meat slayers in various parts of the world. The self discovery found along the way is to be expected, but it’s still nice to follow Powell as she’s on her own, away from the men who trouble her mind, gaining the confidence we knew she had all along to resolve her romantic woes.
It’s no “Julie and Julia,” but “Cleaving” will certainly make you appreciate a balanced partnership if you have one and warn you of the dangers of complacency and temptation inherent to marriage if you don’t.
Powell will be making several appearances in Austin in December. The first is a book signing at BookPeople, 603 N. Lamar Blvd., and the second at 7 p.m. on Dec. 7, at an Alamo Drafthouse screening of “Julia and Julia” for Eat Local Week.
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By Prentiss Riddle
November 24, 2009 9:48 AM | Link to this
Talk about multitasking! :-)