The Upstairs Delicatessen

October 2, 2023
New York Times book critic Garner (Read Me) meanders through a lifetime of eating—from boyhood mayo-and-cheese sandwiches to the French bouillabaisses of middle age—and summons wordsmiths from Thackeray to Houellebecq in this amusing mix of memoir, criticism, and cultural history. The loose-limbed text is arranged into sections that contemplate the three daily meals, drinks (Garner concurs with H.L. Mencken, who said, “The martini is the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet”), grocery shopping, the sadness of eating alone in a restaurant, and the ideal setup for a dinner party (six to eight guests at a round table so that no one is marooned in a conversational dead zone between two bores). Garner’s own knockabout memories are happily omnivorous and often amusing: “I read novels while stuffing myself with Drake’s Ring Dings, tubs of Cheez Balls, single-serving bags of Famous Amos cookies,” he writes of an early job working the late shift at an Exxon near the Everglades. “I rarely, I am sorry to admit, rang these morsels up on the cash register.” His literary analyses, which see him examining roadkill in Cormac McCarthy’s novels and pickles in Salman Rushdie’s, are likewise delicious. Garner dishes up a plethora of tasty morsels for literary foodies to nosh on. Agent: David McCormick, McCormick Literary.