The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

by Aimee Bender    
$25.95

Hardcover: 304 pages

Publisher: Doubleday; 1 edition (June 1, 2010)

ISBN-10: 0385501129

ISBN-13: 978-0385501125

Annotation/Flashtalk:

 At age 9 Rose Edelstein bit into a piece of lemon cake and she felt all of her mother’s sadness. Food is now ruined for Rose, all taste has been replaced with emotion, many of which leave a bitter taste is Rose’s mouth.

Summary:

At age 9 Rose Edelstein bit into a piece of lemon cake and she felt all of her mother’s sadness. Rose’s new found “skill” has let her in on the secrets and emotions of the world.  It is through the taste of her mother’s cooking that she finds out secrets about her family, including the affair that her mother is having.

The “gift” makes food more of a pain than a pleasure for Rose. She relegates herself to a life of junk food for the uniform and industrial taste of it all.  Her senses are so keen that Rose is eventually able to pick up the terroir  of the ingredients that come together to make up the food she eats.  Her curse or her skill (reader’s choice) follows Rose through adulthood, where she finally finds a way to make some peace of it by learning the art of  cooking from a French couple who own a restaurant and take Rose under their wing.

There is a parallel story about the unusual “gift” her brother Joseph possesses as well, one that has nothing to do with food.  His story seems out of place and extraneous to the novel, except in the sense that the family each has their own gift.

Genre/Subgenre: Fantasy/Magical Realism

Evaluation: 1-star.