Eating Crow: A Novel - Hardcover

Rayner, Jay

3.15

573 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743250591 ISBN 13: 9780743250597

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2004

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Apologizing to the widow of a chef who committed suicide after receiving a bad review, restaurant critic Marc Basset so enjoys being forgiven that he decides to apologize to everyone he has ever wronged, setting in motion a series of events that culminates in his appointment as Chief Apologist for the United Nations. 35,000 first printing.

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About the Author:

Jay Rayner is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster who is now the London Observer's restaurant critic. He is married and lives in London.

From Booklist:

This novel of regret begins with apology and wallows in remorse throughout, but it nevertheless induces plenty of hearty laughs. Critic Marc Basset's pompous, venomous restaurant review, published in the name of "interesting" writing, causes a depressive chef to seal himself in one of the restaurant's ovens. The newly deflated Basset, facing public opprobrium, apologizes to the chef's wife for his odious prose. Reflecting on all his supposed failings since adolescence, he then seeks out his first jilted sexual conquest. A broadcast apology for another supposed sin turns out to be deliciously cathartic for Basset and bestows minor celebrityhood. This leads to a new career for Basset: penitential engagement, which thrusts him onto the world stage where he must deal gravely with life-and-death situations. Rayner adroitly mocks the current fashion for public figures' mawkishly fawning for forgiveness in the media. This is interspersed with acerbic insights into the current state of cuisine. Through his characters, Rayner shows how even so unassuming an action as saying "I'm sorry" can be perverted into something far removed from true reconciliation. Mark Knoblauch
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