A delicious literary banquet, served with panache and wit, this collection of six short stories and a novella, written in a style that is subversively honest and shamelessly sexy, explores the many aspects of female hunger--sexual, psychic, material, and gastronomic. QPBC Alternate National publicity. Regional reading tour .
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
A feisty debut collection of six stories and a novella featuring feminist urban guerrillas, mostly stymied, who take their pleasure in ``Raisin Rage'' lipstick, etc. Torrey's women all desperately want more control over their lives and their hungers. Like athletes, they train and compete for success in Manhattan settings ranging from offices and restaurants to bedrooms and strip clubs. In ``Eyes,'' nude dancer Candy Cane works her job at the Peekaboo Lounge; unhappily, she's become the unwilling victim of her own power to snare men by catching and holding their gazes. Less exposed but just as frustrated, the nameless girlfriend in ``Parking Lot'' struggles to find meaning with a man obsessed by his aged mother. A novella, ``Me and Mine,'' desultorily follows the anticlimactic nine-to-five routine of a jaundiced legal secretary. The fun here and elsewhere is in the sardonic tone: Instead of giving up, Torrey's heroines simply get weird, shedding their clothes after hours in their bosses' well- windowed aeries or stealing the company's pens. The problem, however, is that the stories also share an atmospheric sameness, along with a lack of plot. The best piece, ``Sweat,'' succeeds by immersing the reader in the details of a fancy city-gym, nicely catching the lust and gloom that send obsessively lonesome body- builders there to labor, grunt, gape, and try to connect. Symbolically, the tale resonates because the heroine and her desires are so grounded in specifics; one can't object to the writer's fatalism here because it seems indisputably realistic. But too often Torrey's reliance on impressionistic description to launch and guide her characters softens a story's impact. And while the moods (of anonymity, fear, anger) are convincing, the characters displaying them tend toward the vague. Bright lights, bad city, okay book. (Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
...a mouthwatering treat. -- Entertainment Weekly, Margot Mifflin
Torrey's considerable descriptive powers seem all too compulsively devoted to the intricacies of compulsive behavior. -- The New York Times Book Review, Paula Friedman
Torrey's considerable descriptive powers seem all too compulsively devoted to the intricacies of compulsive behavior. -- The New York Times Book Review, Paula Friedman
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, moving, and riotously funny,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hungry (Hardcover)
A beautifully written collection of tales. Joanna Torrey's use of extended metaphor as a funhouse mirror to highlight a character's deepest secrets is amazing. Her wicked wit and deep empathy keep the reader transfixed. "Eyes" says as much about the relationship between women and men, patient and therapist, as any psychology textbook. "Hungry" uses food, gourmet and junk, to explore the contradictions of a woman's feelings for the men in her life. "Backrubs" is a sweet, moving memoir of father and daughter, reclaiming innocence for this relationship. And the novelette, "Me and Mine," should be required reading for anyone who has ever been a secretary, especially at a law firm. Absolutely hysterically funny. Joanna Torrey is unafraid to cut right to the heart of a character's bitterness and fear, and she does it with great humor and compassion. A volume that is endlessly rewarding!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A funny, sexy collection of stories about modern women,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hungry (Hardcover)
This is a beautiful collection of short stories and a novelette exploring the psyches of modern women. Joanna Torrey's writing style is easy to read, yet dense with meaning and allusion. Ms. Torrey can take a single metaphor and use it to explore every facet of a character. In "Hungry," the title story, she uses food, gourmet and down-home, to delineate a wonderfully funny woman and her relationships with various men and her own sexuality. In "Sweat," exercise and the homeliest of bodily functions become the lens magnifying a life of secret desire. "Back Rubs" is a marvelously innocent account of filial and parental love (none of the usual psychotraumas-of-the-week in this story). "Snoop" and "Parking Lot" teach you more about relationships and imagination than any self-help book on the shelves. The novelette, "Me and Mine," should be required reading for every secretary, legal and otherwise--this is our lives, in excrutiatingly funny detail. Highly recommended! A satisfying and hysterically funny collection.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Luscious, subversive; read it!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hungry (Hardcover)
Hungry is a true feast with the novella, Me and Mine, a deliciously subersive and hilarious centerpiece. Anyone who's ever worked in the corporate world -- especially as a worker bee -- will recognize the Dragon Lady, Peach, Plant Man and especially Mine, Almost Mine and Biggest Mine. And I guarantee you'll never look at a dictaphone the same way again. But, this is not just a comic writer; her portraits of the disaffected can be wrenching, and Back Rubs just might break your heart.
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