[Book Review] A Certain Hunger (2020)

It begins with a meal. And a murder. Not necessarily in that order. Chelsea G. Summers’s debut novel A Certain Hunger revitalizes the sophisticated cannibal through a feminist slant. Her narrator Dorothy Daniels is in her 50s; she’s a prolific culinary critic; and she is imprisoned for murdering and eating her lovers.

Dorothy knows Bedford Hills prison is inescapable. That doesn’t stop her from being bored. So, Dorothy does what any critic would do: she starts writing. Framed as a memoir, A Certain Hunger largely eschews linear narration for ornate vignettes. From her perspective as memoirist, the book secures Dorothy’s notoriety—the only thing left to strive for when death in prison is inevitable. She looks back on her charmed life with only a few police interrogations in between. 

When Dorothy takes the first bite of her lover’s haunch, it might as well be fated. From the first murder that she relates (the one that lands her at Bedford), she unravels the series of lovers-cum-meals throughout her life. But it’s not just any men she cannibalizes; it’s the ones who mean most to her. Sex is a large component to Dorothy’s life and her narrative. Like her descriptions of slicing, cooking, and devouring flesh, she doesn’t shy away from these details. Dorothy knows it is salacious. That’s why she’s writing. The novel’s non-linear structure drives the reader through its juiciest parts, man by man. The men are fleeting. Summers’ decision not to dwell on them works well until the otherwise apathetic Dorothy falls deeply in love. It’s clear that Summers seeks to highlight the sacrifices women make when they choose traditional roles, and what they lose when they don’t. The critical work she hopes to do, however, is underdeveloped and placed too late in the narrative. Reader investment in this romance is a long stretch. It certainly pales when put in context of Dorothy’s sole lifelong friendship with the peculiar artist Emma Absinthe, and her ruminations on relationships between women. 

Interspersed with explorations of cannibalism, the law, and gender, A Certain Hunger is at its best when Dorothy lends her critical eye to the pervasive history of cannibalism and cultural (and jurisdictional) attitudes toward violent women. The novel is much a satire of foodie criticism as it is a treatise on modern womanhood. Summers attempts to marry the wittiness of satire with serious analysis of gender, though it doesn’t always come to fruition. Dorothy’s career as a food critic elucidates her personality beyond the self-ascribed title of psychopath. She’s particular. She’s a woman who gets what she wants. She luxuriates, taking as much care with details of dinners and drinks as her murders. The dishes in A Certain Hunger are nearly as captivating as the cannibalism (how many of us can claim plates full of bear?). Summers’ lush language and propensity for innumerable similes, however, requires acclimation. Like the novel’s format, the syntax largely hits but occasionally misses. Though part of the affected style is due to Dorothy’s personality, the numerous allusions tend toward distracting if not frustrating. Metaphors come in too quick succession and their cleverness falls apart upon explanation. When it comes to the primary problem of gender, the narrative often lacks subtlety and resorts to telling its complexities rather than showing. Daniels claims, “To eat people is to get the taste of a Titan. It’s infinite immortalization. It makes a god out of a woman.” Hubris is certainly Dorothy’s fault, but it’s A Certain Hunger’s too. 

Despite its pitfalls, A Certain Hunger’s examination of female violence, rage, and power does what few of its thematic predecessors have done. It’s a worthy novel for this alone. For centuries, cannibalism has been a heated topic—from Jonathan Swift’s 1729 satire A Modest Proposal through European empires’ propagandized use of the practice to justify genocide and imperialism, to the controversial film Cannibal Holocaust (1980). We might wonder if its fervour died down this century. Though it is true that audiences still flock to shows like Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal (2013–2015) and Alma Katsu’s retelling of the Donner party The Hunger (2018), the notion of cannibalism may have lost its inherent edge. Any fan of long-running criminal procedures will tell you it’s bound to show up at least once. It’s par criminal horror’s course. But despite comparisons of Dorothy Daniels to Hannibal Lector, A Certain Hunger is not derivative of its ancestors. Lector’s dominance in our zeitgeist is hard to ignore. The comparisons are natural, but insufficient. As so often occurs, when a woman takes up the mantle of a familiar male figure, the creator is accused of peddling a gimmick. After all, we have seen the ceaseless interest in Thomas Harris’s work over the past thirty years—the new CBS series Clarice being the latest. Though Dorothy and Lector may be said to share a significant degree of ego and expensive taste, A Certain Hunger is not preoccupied with the psychology of the criminal world or the terse interactions between law and wrongdoer. Most crucial, however, is that these comparisons fail to recognize the complexity of a female cannibal. Dorothy is not a one-dimensional gendered translation of Hannibal Lector. Rather, her position as a woman situates her entirely differently from the infamous cannibal.

Dorothy Daniels knows she isn’t so different from you or I. We can’t deny this. We’ve admittedly picked up a novel about a cannibal. We use the same cannibalistic language (how many books have you devoured lately?). We struggle with friendship and power and our own darkness. And maybe, as she asserts, you’ve wondered how the person next to you might taste sautéed. A Certain Hunger proves that cannibalism isn’t just about the taste or the divine rush of power—it’s endemic to society. “Some of us,” Summers writes, “were born with a howling void where our souls should sway” (27). There is violence within womanhood that our culture prefers to ignore. While many will repress it, some are willing to feed it.

RELATED ARTICLES

---

---

GHOULS GANG CONTENT

EXPLORE

---

MORE ARTICLES

---

---