The Woman Who Never Cooked
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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
The American adult woman is featured in this debut collection of stories about love, adultery, marriage, passion, death, and family. There is a subtle humor here, and an innate wisdom about everyday life as women find solace in cooking, work, and chores. Tabor reveals the thoughts of her working professional women who stream into Washington, D.C., from the outer suburbs, the men they date or marry, and the attractive if harried commuters they meet. One woman fantasizes about the burglar who escaped with her deceased mother's jewelry. In another story, the protagonist uncovers her husband's secret: his pocket mirror and concealer do not belong, as she had feared, to a mistress but rather are items he uses to hide his growing bald spot. Revealed here are the hidden layers of lives that seem predictable but never are. Reading Tabor's wry tales, one has the sense of entering the private lives of the women you see everyday on your way to work. Emily Cook
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Mary Tabor's exuberant collection is a glorious celebration of life in the midst of suffering, a feast of love and a dance of delight, an absolute immersion in sensory pleasures. This is the work of a mature artist, a woman intimately familiar with personal loss who is capable of plunging to the heart of pain, and equally capable of transcending the most devastating circumstances. These stunning stories are intricate and subtle, restrained on the surface and explosive at the center. Mary Tabor is a poet whose exquisite attention to unexpected detail will open you wide with joy and wonder.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is a gift to those who read it. In a collection of linked short stories Mary Tabor has braided a beautiful pigtale. Strands of love and loss are expertly linked; the author slips from one to the other and you will be hard pressed to find the seams. It reads like a memoir, but who knows what is fact, what is fantasy. My only problem with the book is its title "The Woman who Never Cooked", for the author has cooked up a rare concoction. It not only made me hungry in the corporal sense, but made me ravenous for more stories by this accomplished writer. Some of the stories, at the end, pack an unexpected emotional punch that took my breath away. I will not tell you which ones, you will soon find out if you read these sensitive vignettes as you must. Nowhere have I read words that evoke such anguish for the loss of a mother. These stories about family and love go to the heart of life, and touched my heart deeply.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I immensely enjoyed "The Woman Who Never Cooked," a superb collection of fascinating, nuanced, and intriguing stories, several of which I'd read when they were originally published elsewhere. I think repeated readings enhance your appreciation of their texture and depth. You notice new things each time (like in a song by Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen).
This time I've been struck by how cinematic some of the stories are, with characters appearing in color or black and white. The story "the Burglar" called to mind Hitchcock's MARNIE in which Sean Connery is sexually attracted to Tippi Hedren, partly because she is a habitual thief. Overtones of TO CATCH A THIEF too. In "Trouble with Kitchens," a character named Eliot from an earlier story reappears and provides a new perspective on the same events previously seen through the eyes of another character. Pure Tarantino!
These stories could make for a fascinating film. Woody Allen, Barry Levinson, Jim Jarmusche: read this book!
Raymond K. Connolly, Washington, D.C. USA
This time I've been struck by how cinematic some of the stories are, with characters appearing in color or black and white. The story "the Burglar" called to mind Hitchcock's MARNIE in which Sean Connery is sexually attracted to Tippi Hedren, partly because she is a habitual thief. Overtones of TO CATCH A THIEF too. In "Trouble with Kitchens," a character named Eliot from an earlier story reappears and provides a new perspective on the same events previously seen through the eyes of another character. Pure Tarantino!
These stories could make for a fascinating film. Woody Allen, Barry Levinson, Jim Jarmusche: read this book!
Raymond K. Connolly, Washington, D.C. USA
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love Stories That Embrace Much More Than Love
This very smart collection of stories is also deeply moving. In the tradition of Virginia Wolff, the drama of The Woman Who Never Cooked is in the concentrated power of seemingly... Read more
Published on October 31, 2009 by Helen W. Mallon
5.0 out of 5 stars
Remarkably powerful
This collection of "fiction" is infused with strong memoir quality. As memoir, it's gripping: an interior view of current relationships layered on family background that provides... Read more
Published on April 16, 2008 by Daniel C. Schuman
4.0 out of 5 stars
Only Love Can Break Your Heart
The life and love of the Chekhovian short story live with this writer's work. Each sentence is a delight--some of her sentences are puzzling and demand rereading. Read more
Published on March 28, 2008 by H. Sebring
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Rare Find
One evening recently at Politics and Prose, the best bookstore in DC, I was looking for short stories. Read more
Published on January 27, 2008 by George Carver
5.0 out of 5 stars
an outstanding new writer
Mary L. Tabor's new collection is a must-read for anyone who enjoys crisply written, thematically rich short stories. Read more
Published on July 12, 2007 by Jim "Sketcher" Loucks
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Talented Mary Tabor
Mary Tabor's writing is powerful, evocative, and tender in "The Woman Who Never Cooked." All the stories are incredible, but both the title story and "Sine Die" left me in tears. Read more
Published on July 5, 2006 by A Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Bitter and the Sweet
I've been in love with Mary Tabor's work since I read her first published story. How thankful I am now for this collection. Read more
Published on April 2, 2006 by A Reader
