Betty Fussell refers to her 13th book, How to Cook a Coyote: The Joy of Old Age, as a "coming-of-death story." The Shakespeare scholar, food historian, and memoirist was born in 1927. Though "Tick tock" is a refrain as she senses time running out, her sardonic autobiographical essays burst with memories of food, friendship, sexual passion, and globe-trotting adventures.
Fussell (My Kitchen Wars; Eat, Live, Love, Die) is mostly blind and since 2012 has lived in a Montecito, Calif., retirement home, Casa Dorinda--coincidentally, the alma mater of Julia Child, whose mantle she took up by reinstituting a "Breakfast Club" of five elderly intellectuals. Each 7:30 a.m. breakfast is sacred when shared with friends, whose sometimes absurd dialogue she re-creates for readers' delight.
The book's 40 miniature essays are self-deprecating ("There is no protection from time. Witness my body") and often employ a playful, inviting direct address to the reader. Fussell gives a rundown of her failing bodily systems and remarks on ironies ("The more slowly I move, the more time speeds up"), yet never gives way to self-pity. "Food is a daily joy when you're old," she declares, and hunger a sign of "being alive and knowing it."
The coyote of the title is both literal and metaphorical here: he's the proverbial trickster, and a symbol of death in general. Later, the author likens him to the Big Bad Wolf, a devourer coming for her memory and her very life: "what sharp teeth they are." He replies, "Mm, yes. The better to eat it all up, my dear." But the coyote is also a real animal, one she tried shooting with her son in Montana--only to wind up in an emergency room on Thanksgiving when she tore a ligament in her ankle. She even gives recipes for a coyote pie with a cornmeal crust, as well as the "Smiley Coyote" cocktail a friend invented for her.
While she awaits a final encounter with that wily coyote, Fussell has vibrant memories to sustain her. "The people in my life are the essential condiments and spices," she observes. Many of the pieces are elegies for departed friends and family members, reminiscences of past love affairs, and accounts of memorial services. She also recounts doing competitive seniors' ballroom dancing and attending the 69th reunion of her high school class.
These tongue-in-cheek essays remembering sensual joys are perfect for fans of Diana Athill, Ruth Reichl, and Abigail Thomas. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck
Shelf Talker: Ninety-eight-year-old Betty Fussell reflects on the enduring pleasures and challenges of old age in 40 succinct essays about food, friendship, and cherished memories.