Comfort Food: A Novel (IPPY Award Winner for Best Regional Fiction, West--Pacific)
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List Price:
$12.95
Hungary Hotels Travel Price: $12.95
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Manufacturer: Old Meadow Publishers, LLC
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780976973508
ISBN: 0976973502
Label: Old Meadow Publishers, LLC
Manufacturer: Old Meadow Publishers, LLC
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2005-11-24
Publisher: Old Meadow Publishers, LLC
Release Date: 2005-11-24
Studio: Old Meadow Publishers, LLC
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Editorial Reviews:
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A romantic academic, a self-assured young writer, an enigmatic musician, a slacker, a wealthy mountain climber, and a former heroin addict–characters whose lives intersect in the unique debut novel Comfort Food. Stan Gillman-Reinhart is a graduate student at a small university in Bellingham, Washington in 1993. Through his experiences and frustrations we meet Delany Richardson, a budding writer and old friend of Stan’s; John Snyder, a local musician; Brian Fetzler, Stan’s stoner roommate; Dave Greibing, a mountain climber and Delany’s ex-boyfriend; and Bridgette Jonsen, a former heroin addict and Dave’s current girlfriend. Successive sections of the novel focus on John’s trip through Eastern Europe, Delany’s summer in Alaska, Brian’s life after college, Bridgette’s road trip through Utah, Dave’s ascent of Mt. Denali, and a tragic accident that illuminates their lives. Set in the verdant Pacific Northwest, the sandstone deserts of Utah, the gritty streets of Budapest, and the snow covered wasteland of Mt. Denali, Comfort Food is a literary work with an emphasis on the importance of human relationships and a sense of place. In his inventive new novel Noah Ashenhurst creates a cast of characters–individuals–who are frustrated, isolated, enamored, addicted, connected, and finally redeemed.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good Food
Comment: Admittedly, this novel is not for everyone, but, other than a handful, how many really are? This multi-part novel explores the facets of six interconnected characters over the period of ten years. We first meet them all at a college house party in Bellingham, Washington, through the eyes of Stan Gillman-Reinhart. The next five sections focus on auxiliary characters that Stan knew in college (Delany, Brian, Dave, and Bridgette). The descriptions of places and conversations are so believable and authentic that I had no trouble getting lost in the text. Some might be confused by the unusual structure of the novel (the non-linear plot), but it is far less confusing than a novel such as The Known World by Edward P. Jones. The compartmentalized parts/stories are rich with characterization and fluid prose. The writing doesn't seem pretentious or over stylized compared to other books I've read. I especially enjoyed the second to last section about Brian Fetzler, a disillusioned "stoner", who is beginning to understand that life is difficult and relationships even more so. The last section brings all of the characters to the "present day" (2003) in a way that seems to complete the circle. If you enjoy thought provoking, realistic, and character-driven fiction this book is for you, but if you only enjoy plot-driven novels by Dan Brown this would not be your cup of tea.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Needed another few revisions.
Comment: Noah Ashenhurst, Comfort Food (Old Meadow Publishers, 2005)
I received a copy of Comfort Food back in the ice age, 2005. I was supposed to review it. I started reading it, and everything was going along swimmingly until a trip out to see my parents in the wilds of the Poconos-- where I misplaced the book. A year later, it turned up. Needless to say I'd forgotten everything I'd read of it previously, so I started over from scratch. So I'm a year late and quite a few dollars short, but I did finally get to the "review it" stage. Unfortunately, I think perhaps it would have been better for everyone involved had the misplaced book never turned up again.
I can't give you a plot summary; Mark Twain would have a great deal of fun pulling out the old blunderbuss and taking cracks at those who would attempt to find a plot here. This is, instead, a loosely-related series of stories revolving around a core group of characters who all (I'm pretty sure, anyway) know one another. Now, I rush to add that this is, in itself, not a bad thing. When it's done correctly, it can make for a stunning novel. Why didn't it work in the case of Comfort Food?
There are two aspects to the writing of a novel (and I hear all the novelists groaning as I say this at my oversimplification). There is the art of writing a novel, which involves all the mental and emotional process. It's the story you want to tell, the life you infuse into the characters. Then there is the craft of writing a novel. It's the way you tell the story. To translate this over to movie talk, the art of a film is the actors and the set. The craft is the script and the set design (or, to break away from the parallel, it's also the director and the cinematographer and the sound effects editor and the gaffer and the best boy and...). Ashenhurst has the art bit down; there are stories to be told here. The craft bit, on the other hand, goes wonky on a fairly regular basis. Even the back jacket copy gives you a basic idea of the confusing nature of the book. "Stan Gillman-Reinhart is a graduate student at a small university in Bellingham, Washington in 1993. Through his experiences and frustrations we meet Delany Richardson, a budding writer and old friend of Stan's; John Snyder, a local musician; Brian Fetzler, Stan's stoner roommate; Dave Griebing, a mountaineer and Delany's ex-boyfriend; and Bridgette Jonsen, a former heroin addict and Dave's current girlfriend." Yes, you can follow it if you read it through a few times, but it's not exactly writing that sparks the interest, is it? Things don't improve once you open the book up. The list format of the jacket copy isn't just a convenient way to introduce browsers to the stable of characters, it's also a characteristic of the writing:
"He sighed as the tired departing passengers slowed to a trickle.
"He stood up and hoisted his heavy pack over his shoulders and picked up his guitar case, adjusting his hand on the handle. He moved out and walked down the narrow passage to the exit. He pulled on his shoulder straps, unsuccessfully trying to spare his back the strain."
(p. 42)
Four sentences, a paragraph and a half, all starting with "He". It lulls the reader to sleep, almost. As a bonus, you can add in a bunch of "his"es, plus "hand", "handle", and "heavy" in the second sentence in case you missed the alliteration. Which, again, can be all well and good when it's in the middle of a paragraph that scintillates, something where the writing is as good as the best writing you've ever come across, but here we have deadpan declarative sentences. There's no excitement to them at all. It might be possible to make a case for the old "if you want to write a story about boring people, write a boring story" adage-- that the tenor of the prose mirrors the character's boredom and exhaustion from his recent trip-- but in order to make something like that work, you have to be a master of prose. (The obvious example here is James Joyce's "The Dead".) Here it just comes off monotonous.
I tried to find a way to give this book a decent review, but I just couldn't. There are books I revel in giving bad reviews to, books where the author has so totally blown it that there's really nothing to do but enjoy the ride as you spiral down a black hole of woeful writing, pathetic plot, and cardboard characters. Comfort Food is, emphatically, not one of those books. I understand what Ashenhurst was trying to do here, and I think that with a great deal of revision, this could be a fantastic novel. In its current state, though, it is not. It is the skeleton of a fantastic novel, but it seems to have been infested with flesh-eating bacteria. (zero)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Comfort Food - Misnamed but Great Read
Comment: The only thing I disliked about Noah Ashenhursts's COMFORT FOOD is the title. It should have been given some more Gen-X-ish title that more accurately reflected the novel itself.
Name aside, however, I enjoyed this book. The characters were familiar, and multi-dimensional, and the language was vivid - scenes in the Pacific Northwest were written so well that I could feel misty air on my face.
Customer Rating:
Summary: GOOD READ
Comment: After letting "Comfort Food" lie on my desk at home for over a year, I finally put down my other readings and picked up this one. I seldom read fiction, but found "Comfort Food" an enjoyable, easy, and entertaining read. It took me only a few sittings to read the book, and the time flew. The characters were intriguing enough to keep my interest page after page, and I found myself wanting to know them more with the turning of each page. Especially for those familiar with the Pacific Northwest, "Comfort Food" is a joy to the soul and a great read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Discomfort Food
Comment: I purchased this book this summer on my trip through Boulder. In the Boulder Newspaper I read about a promising new author and his book about the inner struggles of 5 brave characters and how their lives intertwine and interact. The article made it seem like this book was going to be three things: great with character development, great with storytelling, and great with writing about "one's sense of space." This book was terrible. I have been an avid reader my entire life and this is literally one of the worst books I have ever read.
The editing was terrible throughout the length of the book. Grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes, punctuation mistakes - I couldn't believe this book actually went through a proofreading process and was approved and sold for distribution. The mistakes were horrific.
The entire book is supposed to be about character development. Instead the reader starts at a party in college with all 5 characters, and then the reader is told about one significant portion of each of the character's life post-college, then in the final parts of the book the reader is brought through their current places in the world while racing through a final chapter. I think the overall effort of what Noah was trying to portray is a good one, but each section had so little depth it's hard to care too much about any of the characters before you're thrown in to the next ones predicaments. There's very little explanation, the writing talent is very low and almost poor at times, and there are times where political views conflict with the character's voice, or the character's actions don't seem to fit with their earlier character layout in the book. If the character has changed and that's what the author is trying to show, it needed to be a lot more developed. I tried page by page to *get* some sort of underlying theme, I was hoping that one would emerge, but even the final pages confirmed the worst for me. Poor story layout and too many suggested circumstances causing the reader to come to character conclusions which didn't fit the story line.
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