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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe Hunger and the Howling of Killian Lone by Will Storr (view source)
Revision as of 16:17, 3 March 2013
, 16:17, 3 March 2013no edit summary
|reviewer=Ani Johnson
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=An unusual Faustian-ish tale incorporating the cruel world of the 1980s super chef, nouvelle cuisine, a man with ambition and a dark family secret. It's [[:Category:Roald DhalDahl|Roald DhalDahl]] for grown-ups and as good as it is quirky, i.e. excellent.
|rating=4.5
|buy=Yes
As journalist Will Storr is someone who has made radio documentaries for the BBC and written features for some of the best newspapers world-wide, we'd expect a well-researched novel. This expectation hasn't been disappointed: he spent double shifts interviewing the restaurant staff of Michel Roux Jnr and Guillaume Brahimi (with the great chefs' permission of course) along with the study of Rudolph Cheminksi's book on the pressure behind acquiring Michelin stars. The result is a wonderful, dark story weaving fictionalised grotesque with true kitchen horror stories in such a way that it's hard to see the join.
Killian narrates it himself from beyond the grave; a clever device making it rather more-ish from the beginning, and that's not the only clever touch. The family secret comes complete with a 17th century back-story adding depth and twists as Lone moves towards the destiny of which he hints. He starts at the beginning with his parents: more Hogarth etching than Mary Poppins. His mother is particularly cringe-worthy (in character, not writing), her profession being particularly ironic adding the feeling of intended cruelty from one who should know better. Indeed, if [[:Category:Roald DhalDahl|Roald DhalDahl]] was still writing, he'd wished he'd thought of her first.
The other villain of the piece is Max Mann, celebrity chef and kitchen despot. He lives for ''the love of perfect work'', a love ignoring and eradicating anything impeding perfection… decency… kindness… anything at all. Max demonstrates that the more external perfection is sought, the less internal perfection remains and the scariest bit is that some of the episodes in his kitchens are based on truth. I don't want to ruin the impact by giving anything away, but when you consider that bodily fluids are involved (and the swearing you would imagine) you'll see this is perhaps not a book to lend to confident-reading children. (For further clarification, the author is swift to point out that the kitchens of Roux and Brahimi are not in any way implicated in any of the episodes.) It's not all darkness though; the lovely Kathryn brings a lot of light into Killian's world but I shall leave that there as I may have said too much already.
