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Alexis Smith: IMG In the Kitchen with a Deadline

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When I have a writing deadline approaching, you'll probably find me in the kitchen. It's horrible, I know, but when I work with a deadline, I tend... Continue »
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eBook editions

My Year of Meats

by Ruth L. Ozeki

My Year of Meats Cover

ISBN13: 9780140280463
ISBN10: 0140280464
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

Only 1 left in stock at $5.95!

 

Awards

Winner of the Imus American Book Award and the Kiriyama Book Prize.
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Veteran filmmaker Ruth Ozeki's novel has been hailed as "one of the heartiest and yes, meatiest debuts in years" (Glamour). It tells the story of a year in the lives of two ordinary women on opposite ends of the earth, brought together by a convergence of extraordinary circumstances. Jane, a struggling filmmaker in New York, is given her big break — a chance to travel through the U.S. to produce a Japanese television program sponsored by an American meat exporting business. But along the way, she discovers some unsavory truths about love, honor, and a particularly damaging hormone called DES that wreaks havoc with her uterus. Meanwhile, Akiko, a painfully thin Japanese woman struggling with bulimia, is being pressured by her child-craving husband to put some meat on her bones — literally. How Jane's and Akiko's lives intersect taps into some of the deepest concerns of our time — how the past informs the present and how we live and love in an ever-shrinking world.

Review:

"A sexy and funny cross-cultural tale of two seemingly disparate women that is a feast that leaves you hungry for whatever Ozeki cooks up next." Newsweek

Review:

"It's juicy, it's tender, it's bloody, it's sizzling." St. Louis Post Dispatch

Review:

"There is an ardent passion to the center of this novel...rare and provocative." USA Today

Review:

"...a novel as juicy as a good burger." Entertainment Weekly

Review:

"Robust, funny and insistently educational in tone, My Year of Meats deals with the cross-pollination of people and values, toxicity in meat, synthetic estrogens, camera angles and the ever-pertinent issue of perspective and reliability in the media. The only problem is that Ozeki's novel sometimes feels as much like a Lifetime movie as a complex, hard-hitting exposé." Salon

Synopsis:

The perfect fiction companion to The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food

Now that Michael Pollan's New York Times bestsellers have opened up a national dialogue about where food really comes from, conscientious readers everywhere will want to devour My Year of Meats. When documentarian Jane Takagi-Little finally lands a job producing a Japanese television show that just happens to be sponsored by the American meat-exporting industry, she begins to uncover some unsavory truths about love, fertility, and a very dangerous hormone called DES. A modern-day take on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, veteran filmmaker Ruth Ozeki's novel has been hailed as "rare and provocative" (USA Today) and "up-to-the-minute" (Chicago Tribune).

Synopsis:

Jane, a struggling filmmaker, is producing a piece sponsored by the American meat exporting business, while Akiko's child-craving husband is pressuring her to put some meat on her bones--literally.

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About the Author

Ruth L. Ozeki has worked in television and film for the last twelve years. Her documentary and dramatic films have been shown on PBS, at the Sundance Film Festival, and at colleges and universities across the country, and she has received numerous grants and awards for her work. She divides her time between New York City and British Columbia.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Shoshana, February 24, 2008 (view all comments by Shoshana)
It's a little hard to know whether this is an excellent novel with horrific content, or an excellent novel that becomes somewhat disappointing over the course of the story. I tend toward the former interpretation, but some reviewers seem to agree with the latter. Specifically, the novel veers toward pedantic nonfiction documentary toward the end; since the protagonist is making a documentary, this does not trouble me. I'm a little more concerned by the sometimes heavy-handed parallelism between documentarian Jane and important secondary character Akiko. They begin more as foils, but end in some ways as reflections. I'd have liked to see more divergence between them by the end. It's stated, but not adequately conveyed.

Both the novel and negative reviews of the novel evoke comparisons to Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer and Smiley's Moo (indeed, the included reader's guide quotes Smiley's comments about the book). The novel itself involves women finding their place and power, and learning to articulate their beliefs and values, and act on them, with reasonable confidence. Like Moo, the story begins innocently and somewhat farcically, then moves gradually toward more serious revelations with bigger consequences and higher stakes. As in Prodigal Summer, the characters must wrestle with their growing awareness that, hopeless as it may seem, they must act in accord with the dictates of conscience in order not to stand by passively when damage is being done.

All three novels have a reasonably strong anti-chemical agricultural message. All have evoked angry reviews that state that the author (and protagonist) is some sort of unreasonable smug feminist who thinks women (and in this case, also lesbians) and nature are great and that men and American culture are bad--the twist in reviews of My Year of Meats is the charge that Ozeki valorizes white Americans and denigrates Japan. Sorry, I don't see it the way these readers see it. Positive depictions of lesbians and negative depictions of American agricultural practices do not trouble me overmuch. In fact, I see positive and negative depictions of both males and females in all of these novels, and I'm not sure what has some reviewers so up in arms. If I were to count up all the books I've read in which women are shrill and useless and American men save the day, I'd have to say they far outnumber the novels that depict the opposite. Each of these stories doesn't quite trust that the reader will put the pieces together, and so is unnecessarily emphatic and unsubtle. I can live with that.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780140280463
Subtitle:
A Novel
Author:
Ozeki, Ruth L.
Publisher:
Penguin (Non-Classics)
Location:
New York
Subject:
General
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Women
Subject:
Japan
Subject:
Television programs
Subject:
Asian americans
Subject:
Cookery (meat)
Subject:
Housewives
Subject:
Infertility, female
Subject:
Meat industry and trade
Subject:
Women television producers and directors
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Housewives - Tokyo
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Copyright:
1998
Edition Description:
Mass Market
Series Volume:
no. 235
Publication Date:
19990301
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
from 12
Language:
English
Pages:
400
Dimensions:
8.06x5.12x.80 in. .64 lbs.
Age Level:
from 18
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Related Aisles

My Year of Meats Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$5.95 In Stock
Product details 400 pages Penguin Books - English 9780140280463 Reviews:
"Review" by , "A sexy and funny cross-cultural tale of two seemingly disparate women that is a feast that leaves you hungry for whatever Ozeki cooks up next."
"Review" by , "It's juicy, it's tender, it's bloody, it's sizzling."
"Review" by , "There is an ardent passion to the center of this novel...rare and provocative."
"Review" by , "...a novel as juicy as a good burger."
"Review" by , "Robust, funny and insistently educational in tone, My Year of Meats deals with the cross-pollination of people and values, toxicity in meat, synthetic estrogens, camera angles and the ever-pertinent issue of perspective and reliability in the media. The only problem is that Ozeki's novel sometimes feels as much like a Lifetime movie as a complex, hard-hitting exposé."
"Synopsis" by ,
The perfect fiction companion to The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food

Now that Michael Pollan's New York Times bestsellers have opened up a national dialogue about where food really comes from, conscientious readers everywhere will want to devour My Year of Meats. When documentarian Jane Takagi-Little finally lands a job producing a Japanese television show that just happens to be sponsored by the American meat-exporting industry, she begins to uncover some unsavory truths about love, fertility, and a very dangerous hormone called DES. A modern-day take on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, veteran filmmaker Ruth Ozeki's novel has been hailed as "rare and provocative" (USA Today) and "up-to-the-minute" (Chicago Tribune).
"Synopsis" by , Jane, a struggling filmmaker, is producing a piece sponsored by the American meat exporting business, while Akiko's child-craving husband is pressuring her to put some meat on her bones--literally.

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