Customer Reviews

M.F.K. Fisher and Me: A Memoir of Food and Friendship

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This charming little memoir is the perfect addition to the library of any M.F.K. Fisher admirer or travel essay lover. Ferrary and close friend Frances Mayes(author of Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany)befriended Fisher in the later years of her life while Fisher lived in "Last House." Ferrary shares loving, yet honest vignettes that reveal Fisher to be far from the sweet little old lady that many fans imagined. With great tenderness, Ferrary shows us the physical struggles that this indomitable woman fought against declining health. This all too brief volume makes the reader yearn to have been a part of those wonderous visits and at the same time manages to make us feel we were. The experience is not to be missed.

This book struck me as pretty dishonest on the part of the author. It is never clear that she actually told Fisher that she was writing a book about her. Yet, even worse is how several vignettes set up Fisher in order to expose to the reader Fisher's flawed personality but the author so often turns a blind eye to her own behavior and motivations that her scenarios can't be trusted. For instance, the author makes a big point of discussing Fisher's great command of the backhanded compliment. But at least one of the examples the author uses to show this is not a backhanded compliment at all but a straight forward compliment.

If Fisher was so difficult, why did the author keep going back for more? I don't think that Fisher was a saint but I also don't believe that the author was without a lot of ambition of her own. Hence her protracted relationship with this famous writer for her own use.

I know that famous people are often used by others -- usually when the famous people have gotten old and are lonely. But it is dispiriting to see it in action.

You don't get much of M.F.K. Fisher's colorful history, any deeply revealed gossip or scandal. And you leave the book knowing that's exactly what makes this a great read. It's a chronicle of an always loving, sometimes difficult friendship, where the subject has definite boundaries you just do not cross. A lovely, if light memoir.

Yes, when a personality rivets one - and haven't we all been there - any close up look into their lives is welcome. Jeannette is thus affected by MFKF - she is hungry to be in Mary Francis' company and I don't doubt for a second that MF understood full well that JF would write this simple story. I don't find dishonesty in the effort.