{"id":227,"date":"2003-01-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-30T22:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cushlamckinney.wordpress.com\/?p=227"},"modified":"2025-05-03T16:54:59","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T04:54:59","slug":"by-bread-alone-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2003\/01\/01\/by-bread-alone-2\/","title":{"rendered":"By Bread Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><strong>Sarah-Kate Lynch<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><em>Random House<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Otago Daily Times, 2003<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Since biblical times, the making and breaking of bread has occupied a place of great significance in the human psyche-nourishment for both body and soul.&nbsp; For Esme, the main character in Sarah-Kate Lynch\u2019s latest novel <em>By Bread Alone<\/em>, bread also links her back to a small French Boulangerie.&nbsp; Here she met Louis, her first lover and the man who taught her to make pain au levin, the sourdough, she has baked daily ever since. Fifteen years, 6 boyfriends, a husband, and 10 pounds later, her life is more complicated and painful.&nbsp; As she struggles to come to terms with a series of tragedies, these memories become increasingly alluring, and much easier to contemplate than the grief she is trying to bury. Then Louis suddenly reappears&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Esme is a compelling character and her eccentric household (including an unapproachable father-in-law, evil goat, gimpy-legged donkey and vicious bees) provide some wonderfully comic moments.\u00a0 The story also touches on deeper questions, such as the wisdom of trying to escape the present by recapturing the past, but lightly enough that it avoids getting bogged down.\u00a0 Pog, Esme\u2019s husband, does seem too good to be true, and at times the analogy between bread and sex becomes strained (<em>\u201cShe was ready to rise.\u00a0 All that was missing was the baker\u2019s magic touch\u201d<\/em>), but it is an entertaining read.\u00a0 And the recipe for sourdough, painstakingly researched by Lynch herself, makes it well worth the exercise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sarah-Kate Lynch <br \/>\nOtago Daily Times review 2003<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6,370,500,18,20],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-6","tag-fiction","tag-nz-author","tag-odt","tag-sarah-kate-lynch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1178,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions\/1178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}