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Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More by Grace Dent (view source)
Revision as of 11:22, 29 October 2020
, 11:22, 29 October 2020no edit summary
Grace and her father would regularly make sketty together. ''Sketty'' was her father's way of saying spaghetti - and it was delicious. Food played a big part in Grace's childhood. She has memories of the opening of the ASDA superstore, which most people in Currock would remember more vividly than the death of Princess Diana. It changed lives. Going there was an outing, particularly if you could stock up on reduced items at the end of the day. The yellow ''WHOOPS!'' stickers were hunted down and loaded into the trolley. It's hard to avoid the thought that it wasn't in any way a healthy diet.
School wasn't a priority, but Grace was clever and almost despite herself, she went to Stirling University to read English Literature but she wanted to be in London when she graduated. Her steady rise through the world of magazines (''Marie Claire'', ''Cosmopolitan''), into being a much-respected restaurant critic and television personality hid a dark, personal worry - the state of her parents' health. For some time her father had been 'acting strangely' and it was gradually becoming apparent that he had dementia. Getting a diagnosis was difficult: nurses and doctors persisted in talking to her father (rather than the family) and he was clever enough to make everything appear to be fine. Grace's mother was suffering from cancer and the treatments she was receiving left her exhausted and unable to cope. Grace needed to spend most of her time in Cumbria to look after her parents and restaurant reviews had to be done as occasional forays.
I read ''Hungry'' in one sitting: it was just too good to put down. It's candid: nothing appears to be 'glossed over' and I loved it. I loved too that it's inspiring: she didn't get to where she is on the back of a double-barrelled name, public school and a top university. She got there through hard work and determination but didn't forget her parents. There's no suggestion that she thought of them as a burden but what she has to say about the situation is heart-breaking and took me back to the final years of my parents' lives when I had similar problems. It was almost painful.