The Cook

January 15, 2019
A young man makes a demanding but soul-stirring trek through the kitchens of France's finer restaurants.De Kerangal's previous novel published in English, The Heart (2016), was a straightforward tale of organ donation from the donor's death to transplant surgery. The trajectory of this novel is a similar forward march, but it encompasses more emotional and sensory detail; it's slim but potent. The story follows Mauro and his love of cooking from childhood (baking cakes in elementary school) and young adulthood (weaning his friends off fast food with homemade meals) to pursuing a culinary career in his native France. Every tale of culinary apprenticeship seems to demand a trial by fire in a perfectionist kitchen, and this one is no different: He's chided, whacked in the head with a melon baller, and works endless hours. His social life vaporizes; his girlfriend leaves him. But the author does a fine job of exploring why someone like Mauro is still enchanted by the lifestyle. A love of food is part of it, and she writes lovingly about "the taste of a tomato, the subtlety of a stalk of asparagus, the crunch of a curly endive." She's less interested in food porn, though, than in the way the kitchen provides a kind of holistic calm: "He can cook by ear as well as with his nose, hands, mouth, and eyes." What Mauro's life lacks is time to rest, and the anonymous narrator, vaguely suggested as a potential love interest, frames his life as bittersweet, shaped by success in the culinary world but resisting the compromises his increasing success demands, his "mental life simmering carefully like milk over a fire." A life like Mauro's is forever uncertain, the story suggests, but sweetened by an endless cookbook's worth of options.Too short to feel like a full-bodied novel but an admirable literary lagniappe.

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April 1, 2019
At the start of acclaimed French writer Kerangal's (The Heart, 2016) tale, Mauro, 20, is observed on a train headed for culinary school in Berlin. Distracted by the city's nightlife, he is reminded of his goals when he accidentally brushes against his textbook. Over the next 15 years, Mauro is consumed by his work in a variety of kitchens in Berlin, Paris, and Asia, including the one in his own restaurant, while he also manages the normal ups-and-downs of everyday life and confronts his past. An unnamed friend with a limited point of view is the story's narrator and shares information without judgment, making the reader feel equally intimate with both storyteller and protagonist. Kerangal's concise tale is as engaging for the relatable ordinariness of its characters and events as for its tracking of a chef's professional development. The sparse prose increases the impact of carefully chosen details, and the translation retains the power of the compact novel's original French. Kerangal proves that the best reads can come in small packages.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Starred review from March 1, 2019

A multi-award-winning French novelist whose recently translated The Heart was a Wall Street Journal best book, Kerangel offers a documentary-like coming-of-age novel about self-taught chef Mauro, as told by a female friend and disciple who clearly regards him longingly. Mauro starts baking cakes in childhood and rustling up meals for friends in adolescence, then moves on to various jobs, business ventures, a nervous breakdown, and a return to his passion for cooking in a narrative that moves from Paris to Berlin, Thailand, Burma, and more.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2019

A multi-award-winning French novelist whose recently translated The Heart was a Wall Street Journal best book, Kerangel offers a documentary-like coming-of-age novel about self-taught chef Mauro, as told by a female friend and disciple who clearly regards him longingly. Mauro starts baking cakes in childhood and rustling up meals for friends in adolescence, then moves on to various jobs, business ventures, a nervous breakdown, and a return to his passion for cooking in a narrative that moves from Paris to Berlin, Thailand, Burma, and more.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.