Crave - A Memoir of Food and Longing

Christine S. O'Brien

St. Martin's Press

2018

272 páginas

9h 4m

ISBN-13: 9781250128836

A memoir of a life spent struggling with food—from water fasts to late night binges—and the lifelong journey to find balance.
“Do you mind that I’m going to be writing a book about the fact that I was hungry?” I asked my mother, after reading her a section I wrote. “Just tell a good story,” my mother said.

Hunger comes in many forms. A person can crave a steak in the same way that she can crave a perfect family life. In her memoir, Crave, Christine Scherick O’Brien tells the story of her own cravings. It’s a story of growing up with the charade of a perfect family in New York's famed Dakota apartment building. Christine’s father was Ed Scherick, the ABC television executive and film producer who created ABC’s Wide World of Sports and Bewitched as well as classic films like The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and The Heartbreak Kid.

Raised on a farm, her mother Carol had a craving that was almost impossible to fill. After being injured in a farming accident, Carol obsessively craved health even though she was physically fine. She began seeing a doctor who prescribed “The Program.” At first she ate nothing but raw liver, then nothing but blended salads. And that was all she let her daughter, sons, and husband eat.

This well-meant tyranny of the dinner table led Christine to her own cravings for family, for food, and for the words to tell the story of her hunger. Crave is the chronicle of Christine’s painful and ultimately satisfying awakening. And, just as her mother asked, it’s a good one.