Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Dec 2020
240 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Food critic Dorothy Daniels loves what she does. Discerning, meticulous, and very, very smart, Dorothy's clear mastery of the culinary arts make it likely that she could, on any given night, whip up a more inspired dish than any one of the chefs she writes about.
Dorothy loves sex as much as she loves food, and while she has struggled to find a long-term partner that can keep up with her, she makes the best of her single life, frequently traveling from Manhattan to Italy for a taste of both.
But there is something within Dorothy that's different from everyone else, and having suppressed it long enough, she starts to embrace what makes Dorothy uniquely, terrifyingly herself. Recounting her life from a seemingly idyllic farm-to-table childhood, the heights of her career, to the moment she plunges an ice pick into a man's neck on Fire Island, Dorothy Daniels show us what happens when a woman finally embraces her superiority.
A satire of early foodieism, a critique of how gender is defined, and a showcase of virtuoso storytelling, Chelsea G. Summers' A Certain Hunger introduces us to the food world's most charming psychopath and an exciting new voice in fiction.
"[F]iendishly entertaining...Despite Daniels's crimes, she is a consistently appealing companion. With graphic sex and violence, Summers's shocking and darkly funny novel reads like a feminist-horror version of American Psycho." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"You won't soon forget Dorothy or her delicious insights, but fair warning: This book might turn you into a vegetarian, if you aren't already." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Part culinary travelogue, part campy horror, Summers' debut is nothing if not wholly original. Though at times it can become a little tiresome reading from the point of view of a full-blown sociopath, the book offers a perspective hardly explored: that of a woman who's not just angry, but violent...Move aside, Bret Easton Ellis." - Kirkus Reviews
"Chelsea G. Summers' A Certain Hunger reads like a dark, delirious feminist fairy tale. Mordantly funny and lushly baroque, it's American Psycho as rewritten by Angela Carter. Irresistible." - Megan Abbott, bestselling author of You Will Know Me and Dare Me
"Dazzling and gruesome, Chelsea G. Summers has written a gripping tour de force about female friendship, haute cuisine, and how to filet a man and serve him with fine Italian wine. I could not put it down." - Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood
"A Certain Hunger is a masterful satire as brilliant as it is deviant. Such a unique work: philosophical, poetic, and all while being funny as hell. Chelsea G. Summers is a damn good writer." - Mat Johnson, bestselling author of Loving Day and Pym
This information about A Certain Hunger was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Chelsea G. Summers is a freelance writer whose work focuses on sex, politics, tech, fashion and culture. She is a former academic and professor with Ph.D. training in eighteenth-century British literature, a discipline that has proven to be shockingly useful when writing about contemporary culture. She was a columnist for the now defunct ADULT magazine, has a piece upcoming in Roxane Gay's Medium series, and her work has appeared in VICE, Fusion, Hazlitt, the New Republic, Racked, and the Guardian. She splits her time between New York and Stockholm, Sweden. This is her first novel.
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