Melody Murray's Books

Interesting memoir. Child was a fascinating person, and one gets the feeling, a prickly and passionate one as well. Nothing is ever stated right out front, but in passing she refers to stomping on letters in anger and that sort of thing. I suspect she was formidable. This book made me terribly hungry, too.Here's where my provincial and ridiculous prejudices show. The thing I didn't like about listening to this CD was the part where the American-sounding narrator switched into full-on nasal, gargly, obtrusive French at every opportunity. It struck my monolingual ear as affected, and broke up the narration for me. Perhaps the more cultured listener wouldn't roll her eyes with every swallowed consonant, but it made me impatient and annoyed. Yes, yes, yes, I know that the book is set in France, that Child felt her spiritual home was France, and that her fame is built on the way she translated French cuisine to the American kitchen. Child's French pronunciation never annoyed me. The narrator's did. I should have read this book rather than listened to it.