The Theoretical Foot

by M. F. K. Fisher

Overview

When Robert Lescher died in 2012 an unpublished manuscript of M.F.K. Fisher's was discovered neatly packed in the one of the literary agent's signature red boxes. Inspired by Fisher's affair with Dillwyn Parrish — who was to become her second husband — The Theoretical Foot is the master stylist's first novel. In it she describes the life she all–too–briefly had with the man she'd ever after describe as the one great love of her life.

It tells of a late–summer idyll at the Swiss farmhouse of Tim and Sara, where guests have gathered at ease on the terrace next to the burbling fountain in which baby lettuces are being washed, there to enjoy the food and wine served them by this stylish American couple.

But all around these seemingly fortunate people, the forces of darkness are gathering: The year is 1939; World War II approaches. And the paradise Tim and Sara have made is being besieged from within as Tim — closely based on Parrish — is about to suffer the first of the circulatory attacks that will cause him to lose his leg to amputation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781619027558
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	02/01/2016
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, as M F. K. Fisher was the preeminent American food writer. She wrote thirty-three books, including a translation of The Physiology of Taste by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. Her first book, Serve It Forth, was published in 1937. Fisher's books are an amalgam of food literature, travel, and memoir.

Editorial Reviews

Although some of the style is warmed-over Hemingway…most of it has the unflinching spareness Fisher's admirers rely on, along with the essential eruptions of sensuality. The book is strongly of its period, enhanced by the irony we bring to it: We know so much more about the consequences of the good life between the wars that we can judge the characters even more than the author did at the time.

The New York Times Book Review - Corby Kummer

Praise for M.F.K. Fisher

"This previously unpublished autobiographical first novel by the acclaimed food writer presents a snapshot of a certain slice of American expat life in Switzerland in the late 1930s, all sumptuous feasts and sun–dappled terraces."—NatGeo Traveler

"Fisher's novel has exquisite moments. . ." —Kirkus

"If I were still teaching high–school English, I'd use [Fisher's] books to show how to write simply, how to enjoy food and drink but, most of all, how to enjoy life. Her books and letters are one feast after another." —Frank McCourt

"She writes about fleeting tastes and feasts vividly, excitingly, sensuously, exquisitely. There is almost a wicked thrill in following her uninhibited track through the glories of the good life." —James Beard

"M.F.K. Fisher is our greatest food writer because she puts food in the mount, the mind and the imagination all at the same time. Beyond the gastronomical bravura, she is a passionate woman; food is her metaphor." —Shana Alexander

"I do not know of anyone in the United States . . . who writes better prose." —W. H. Auden

From the Publisher

2015-12-08
From the great 20th-century food and travel writer, a lyrical roman à clef set among Americans in 1930s Switzerland. In 1938, Fisher was living with her soon-to-be second husband, Dillwyn "Tim" Parrish, in a farmhouse outside a Swiss village. Soon after this autobiographical story is set, Parrish developed a circulatory disease and had to have his leg amputated. The agony of his phantom limb—the "theoretical foot" of the title—eventually drove him to suicide, and Fisher's novel lay unpublished in her agent's files for decades. In it, the Fisher character, Sara Porter, is living out of wedlock with the Parrish-like Tim Garton on an estate overlooking a Swiss lake. Late in the summer, Tim's and Sara's siblings and several friends descend on the couple for a house party. Brief italicized passages from Tim's point of view after he loses his leg contrast darkly with the sensuous and mostly plotless idyll. The book's key note is impossible love: siblings longing for siblings with almost incestuous intensity, a young man infatuated with an older woman, a widow in love with her female best friend, couples scandalously unmarried or married to other people. All this longing infuses the action—or rather, inaction—with a poignancy familiar to readers of Fisher's travel and food writing. The characters pick flowers, arrange them, nap, dress, watch each other in mirrors, and, of course, eat and drink: "They ate little roasted cold pigeons and dug into a magnificent aspic all atremble with carrots and radishes and slices of cucumbers cut like stars and moons….The wine was rich and ripe and slid warmly down their various throats in different ways." A period piece and an interesting novelty, Fisher's novel has exquisite moments, but it's easy to see why she didn't consider herself a novelist.

Kirkus Reviews