Synopses & Reviews
The compelling story of a young woman's recovery from a privileged yet painful childhood and away from the cravings that came to control her life. In public, Margaret Bullitt-Jonas was a superachiever--a stellar graduate student at Harvard and a dutiful daughter in a distinguished family. In private she was eating herself into oblivion.
Beginning with her childhood in an emotionally constrained home where uncommon accomplishment was the expected norm and where her father's alcoholism--and the toll it took on the family--was kept secret, food addiction became Bullitt-Jonas's means of both concealing and communicating her needs and desires. We see her life increasingly consumed by overeating and the desperate effort to make herself stop.
With extraordinary honesty and grace, she describes her descent into addiction; the crisis that forced her to choose, literally, between life and death; and the arduous process through which she learned to set aside her compulsive cravings and listen to her heart's desire.
A tale of anguish and longing, confusion and forgiveness, Holy Hunger shows us a life-threatening situation becoming a path to grace as Bullitt-Jonas gradually finds new ways of relating to herself and others, and discovers the spiritual hunger beneath her craving.
Synopsis
The compelling first-person account of a young woman's stormy passage out of a privileged yet painful childhood and away from the cravings that came to control and misshape her life.
In public, Margaret Bullitt-Jonas was a superachiever -- a stellar graduate student at Harvard -- and an ever-dutiful daughter in a distinguished family. In private she was eating herself into oblivion. Having grown up in an emotionally repressive home where uncommon accomplishment was the expected norm and where her father's alcoholism -- and the toll it took on the family -- was kept a dark secret, food addiction became Bullitt-Jonas's only means of both concealing and communicating her needs and desires. With extraordinary honesty and grace, she describes her descent into addiction, the crises that forced her to choose, literally, between life and death, and the arduous process through which she learned to overcome her compulsions and understand their true cause.
Holy Hunger is the eloquently told story of one woman's struggle to understand the nature of hunger in all its myriad and deepest manifestations -- physical, emotional, and spiritual.
About the Author
Margaret Bullitt-Jonas was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lives with her husband and young son in a suburb west of Boston. She leads retreats in both the United States and Canada and has been involved with 12-step spirituality for more than fifteen years. She is an Episcopal priest who serves as Associate Rector of All Saints Parish, Brookline, and as a lecturer at Episcopal Divinity School.