Book Description
“This zany novel will make you appreciate your own fallen soufflés that much more.” —Redbook
The writer known only as FW lives high on the food chain in the heady realm of L.A.s culinary journalism scene. She waxes poetic about her hip home gatherings, thinly veiling the identities of her Hollywood guest list. At least, it seems that way to her readers. In reality, FW’s been inventing the dinner parties she writes about because social paralysis sets in at the very thought of a real guest in her fabulous—or is it shabby?—hillside home.
Enter the glossy food magazine editor, new in town, who wants an invitation to one of her bashes, and the panic–stricken journey from fantasy to reality is on . . .
Entertaining Disasters—at turns whimsical and deeply affecting—chronicles the struggle FW faces in the week before she hosts her first real dinner party in ages. At the same time, her estranged sister threatens to drop by, her husband takes off, and even more disaster looms, in this “funny, satirical novel” (Booklist) that “offers sharp, startling observations in a unique and very human voice” (Elle).
Praise For This Book
"[Entertaining Disasters] is an extended brood on food, love, family, and the exhausting rat race of L.A. . . . it offers sharp, startling observations in a unique and very human voice." —Elle"This zany novel (with recipes) will make you appreciate your own fallen souffles that much more." —Redbook
"With deftness and wit, Nancy Spiller delivers needle–sharp insights into middle–class life and marriage, while portraying the dissolution of a family and the rise of longing for a culinary salvation." —Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black
"Cooking, we begin to see, allows FW to do what her family could not—meld warring ingredients into a harmonious whole. The looming dinner party is her bid for psychic as well as social redemption . . . Entertaining Disasters offers memoir's most potent pairing: the child's eye, sensual and vindictive, with the grown–up's aching heart . . . it's a testament to Spiller's skill as a narrator that tragedy and comedy begin to seem like a natural couple and that feeding a gathering of friends is the ultimate modern ordeal." —Ariel Swartley, Los Angeles Magazine
