Lonesome Animals

M.F.K. FISHER'S career began in the 1930s and spanned decades, her glittering prose blending musings on food, love, sex, and the pleasures of eating well and reveling in the senses. With her dozens of books, she pioneered an entirely new sensibility, influencing a whole generation of chefs and writers alongside legions of readers and eaters. Her essays return the conversation to the simple, often intensely personal experience of food and diningù whether it's a five-course affair or the mysteries of the fried egg sandwich. An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher traces Fisher's own appetites both professional and private. From her unhappy first marriage and travels through Europe, the United States, and Mexico to the suicides of her great love and, later, her brother, the complete saga describes the sometimes turbulent, always passionate intersection of food and personal desire.

Bruce Holbert is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. His work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Hotel Amerika, Other Voices, The Antioch Review, Crab Creek Review, The West Wind Review, and Cairn. Bruce Holbert grew up at the foot of the Okanogan Mountains. His great-grandfather was an Indian scout and among the first settlers of the Grand Coulee.