Customer Reviews

The Hungry Years: Confessions of a Food Addict

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I don't hate this book, but it's not the book I thought it would be. From the review I'd read and from the title itself, I was expecting a book about food addiction. But it's not just about binge-eating, as William Leith is also heavily into coke, drinking and anything else that you might become addicted to (cell phones, casual sex). By the end of the memoir he seems to have become addicted to walking, though I'm not quite sure if we're supposed to think this is a positive thing or not.

You could argue -- as Leith does -- that the basics of addiction are the same no matter what you are addicted to, and you'd probably be right. However, I still feel that snorting coke and drinking yourself unconscious is on a whole other level than unhealthy eating, because you need to cross a social threshold to do drugs. For me this threshold is very high, and that makes it difficult for me to grasp the kind of world where doing coke recreationally is normal, never mind doing it until you collapse.

I was hoping to find a book about the love-hate relationship a binge-eater has with food, but Leith's memoir is more about how a traumatic childhood can trigger compulsiveness. The language itself is even a little compulsive, with repeated sentences like, "I am, and I am not;" "We are empty, and we are not empty." There are several lines in a row that begin with the word "And," and five or six chapters end with the same sentence, in order to drive a point home.

All in all this is not a terrible book. It doesn't offer any final solutions, it's humorous and sometimes thoughtful, and with its bite-size chapters it's an addictive read. But it's not really a book about food addiction.

William Leith's The Hungry Years, written in smooth, stream-of-consciousness prose, is a chronicle of the author's addictions, principally to food but also to alcohol and drugs. Leith writes about bingeing and being fat (a word he injects into the narrative at every opportunity), about feeling fat even during his thin periods, about dieting--losing weight and gaining more back, losing and gaining. His history is punctuated by lapses into unthinking consumption, gluttony on a scale that may surprise his more abstemious readers. During the period covered in the book Leith is attempting to lose weight on yet another diet, this time the low-carbohydrate Atkins plan. While chronicling his progress and backsliding on Atkins Leith gives a fractured account of his life, which in turn illuminates his addictions: unhappy years in boarding school, a series of unhappy relationships. Throughout, Leith is searching for the underlying cause of his addictions: he is smart enough to recognize that whatever his current condition--fat or thin or drunk or not--however successfully he may be treating his symptoms, he is basically unhappy. However much he loses this time on Atkins, in other words, diet alone can't truly help him.

In the course of writing this staggeringly personal, and sometimes amusing, account of himself, Leith wanders also into related topics. He writes about French fry production and celebrity diets (Robbie Coltrane, "Hagrid" in the Harry Potter films, will not appreciate his mentions here), about pain killers and plastic surgery. (Leith's graphic description of the last should dissuade any but the most intractably vain from undergoing elective procedures.) In the end Leith's various ruminations come together into a coherent whole. The book succeeds as a readable exploration of both the West's culture of consumption and its author's demons--wounded by book's end, if not yet slain.

Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

Leith's book is a powerful read for anyone who has grappled with compulsive behavior. His memoir reads like a stream-of-conscious odyssey of a bright guy struggling to master his relationship to external desires for food, alcohol, drugs, and women. In the end, he discovers that his goal of mastery may have been misguided, and that his compulsivity may be more about his need for emotional calm than external pleasure. Leith's book is funny, intelligent, and, in the end, optimistic. While the book tends to get bogged down when the author spends too much time explaining the ins and outs of the Atkins diet and the theory that supports it, it is a generally fast moving read that engages the reader.

I tried to like William Leith's book but I found his writing tiresome and surprisingly unperceptive. The author has little insight into why he eats all the time, he just talks about how much of it he does, and though I could relate to his food addiction, I could not relate to his outlandish social commentary. What was his point in writing this memoir? I came away from the book with no definite answer to this question. I admire his courage in writing this book, but I don't think his writing style is engaging or enlightened.

I can tell that this book was written by someone accustomed to writing shorter pieces. Although the topic was interesting, the book rambled and lurched along in a largely unrecognizable structure. Many of the author's (interesting, even) ideas were obscured due to the lack of cohesiveness of the book as a whole. Too bad a good editor didn't get on this one and whip it into better shape, because the topic as a whole is rife with possibility, and the author has an interesting and likeable voice.

This isn't a book about food, this is a book about addiction.

The author's addicted to coke, food, alcohol, etc., at various times. And he's impressively compulsive about it, cramming in food as fast as possible.

Like many people these days, I'm watching my weight (and its tendency to creep up!). And I was interested in someone else's story about dealing with food and weight issues. But I couldn't really identify with this saga. It was just so far over the top from what I feel. I'm actually amazed that, given the was he inhales his food, that he wasn't a lot heavier.

So, if you are interested in a tale of addiction, and a bit of redemption, you might enjoy this. If you are interested in a book on food & weight, it's really not so much that.

Although he does appear to be on the right track at the end of the book, whether you can put that down to the Atkins diet he was doing, or the therapy he was getting, is an open question.

This book is about a male journalist fighting his obsession with food. Excellent writing (what you would expect from a good journalist) and the writer has a sense of humour that makes this a fascinating read! A must have in your library!

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... and like peanuts, a moderate amount of this book is good, but you'll consume more than you need. Leith's writing is addictive -- stream of consciousness about his inability to stop consuming food, drugs,alcohol, sex -- and I found myself unable to turn away from observing his uncensored mind at work -- saying to myself 'just one more of his 3-page chapters'. I finished, even though I found nothing particularly original or profound in his repetitive chatter about how consumed we are with consuming and how empty the resulting guilt makes us feel and how looking within ourselves for greater contentment and rewards is a better solution. So be forewarned, once you're into this for a few pages, you'll be hooked, but you may feel a bit guilty afterward .

William Leith gets it. While this culture disingenuously and hypocritically tsk-tsks over scary skinny Hollywood and New York starlets, and prepubescent anorexia cases; the height of this obsession has started to migrate across the pond--to England.

So, we have a scathing diatribe against externalities of any sort, including dieting. (And especially plastic surgery!) Even credit cards and cell phones! Dieting will give you a substitute slim body with which you could appear not to have ever stuffed your face and/or had problems. Cell phones image to the world that you are oh-so-very-well-connected!! (I do not own a cell phone, and will use someone else's only if paid to do so.) Don't even get me started on plastic surgery--suffice to say, I am fine with my droopy facial skin. All of these external changes function as fashion statements. These fashion statements contribute to surface, ersatz existences!

Leith probably has the resources and much of the gumption to have afforded a personal trainer to help him physically work out some of his body image issues and obsession with fashion (usually women's territory)--instead, with formidable intellectual courage, he explores his own emotional history and, with the help of low-carbing, loses weight.

One of the main reasons I personally choose to live in my current ersatz body has been medical issues, which were not brought about by excess weight, but are aggravated by it. However, I am on a high-carb diet--it's much tougher at first, but all roads eventually lead to the same end--restrictions and strait jackets.

This book was written as an object lesson. It should be required reading for therapists, dietitians, nutrition coaches and weight loss group entrepreneurs (but it probably won't be).

In any case, as a woman I got the message, whether intended or not.