I started liking Julie Powell the moment I saw her on the vastly popular Food Network show IRON CHEF. She was trying to verbally illustrate the flavor in one of the dishes that had been made with peas as the central ingredient. Powell energetically declared her love for the “pea-ness” flavor of the dish. She later posted the video on her blog (Julie & Julia) of her slightly risqué but unabashedly naïve and charming run as a food network judge with a self-deprecating and amusing take on her slight slip of the tongue. She caught me off guard then and continues to do so with her follow up to the blockbuster hit Julie & Julia.
To say that I was excited to dive into CLEAVING is an understatement, but I certainly had my reservations. I couldn’t begin to assume that I would enjoy a book about the unpleasant task of cutting raw meat. There was something very coarse about the general proposal of such a task and the subsequent book that evolved from Powell’s freefall into this unlikely world. Needless to say, I was ambivalent. However, the essential meat of the story emerges from the relationship between Powell and her husband Eric. Did I expect this would be a relationship story? No. Was I happy to discover that it veered off meat and into the affecting terrain of a marriage breaking apart? Yes, because the drama that evolves from the unusual and personal aspects of a relationship is universal.
Powell covers some strong emotional landscape in her follow-up memoir, from the dissolution of an affair, to the desire to be independent, to the powerful learning curve that comes from stepping out of your life and then, ultimately returning a changed person.
Cleaving is a penetrating and truthful memoir about a woman who is anything but ordinary.
