Cook

A slim bountiful beautifully written (and gorgeously translated) ''Portrait of the Chef as a Young Man.'' --Nancy Klinke The New York Times Book ReviewOne of BBC Culture''s Ten Books to Read this March and The Rumpus Book Club Pick for MarchMaylis de Kerangal follows up her acclaimed novel The Heart with a dissection of the world of a young Parisian chefMore like a poetic biographical essay on a fictional person than a novel The Cook is a coming-of-age journey centered on Mauro a young self-taught cook. The story is told by an unnamed female narrator Mauro’s friend and disciple who we also suspect might be in love with him. Set not only in Paris but in Berlin Thailand Burma and other far-flung places over the course of fifteen years the book is hyperrealistic―to the point of feeling at times like a documentary. It transcends this simplistic form however through the lyricism and intensely vivid evocative nature of Maylis de Kerangal’s prose which conjures moods sensations and flavors as well as the exhausting rigor and sometimes violent abuses of kitchen work.In The Cook we follow Mauro as he finds his path in life: baking cakes as a child; cooking for his friends as a teenager; a series of studies jobs and travels; a failed love affair; a successful business; a virtual nervous breakdown; and―at the end―a rediscovery of his hunger for cooking his appetite for life.