Reviews for Delicious Foods: A Novel

by James Hannaham

Library Journal
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A modern-day story of exploitation and slavery in the drug trade, this novel features three main characters: Darlene, a college-educated African American mother who descends into addiction when her activist husband is killed; Eddie, her devoted son; and Scotty, the malevolent and self-centered voice of the drug. Hannaham (God Says No) narrates this recording with a crisp and no-nonsense voicing until he reaches Scotty's portion of the story. Then, the metamorphosis is total as Hannaham imbues the voice of the drug with all the sass and verve of a forbidden and powerful enticement, one that is an "old friend" to Darlene. This audiobook is worth a listen just for Scotty's character, but listeners will stick with the novel through the horrendous developments because Hannaham wisely starts off this work with the ending, the survival of Eddie. VERDICT Recommended for most public and university library collections. ["Hannaham doesn't flinch as he draws attention to exploitation and racial injustice through memorable characters undaunted by their own personal suffering, wisecracking their country wisdom about survival and loyalty to family and friends. An eye-opening, standout novel": LJ Xpress Reviews 3/6/15 starred review of the Little, Brown hc.]-Karen Perry, Old Dominion Univ., Norfolk, VA © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.


Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Hannaham proves to be just as savvy a voice narrator as he is an author, bringing the story to life in the audio edition of his latest literary tome. His performance is a memorable one. It's roughly divided between two distinct voices: an elegant, deep tone Hannaham employs for straight narration, and the fast-talking, hilarious, street-infused inflections of Scotty, the personified voice of crack cocaine. Hannaham clearly has fun with Scotty, so much that listeners will begin to feel the seductive pull of the drug and the intimate, exclusive relationship it promises. Along the way Hannaham shows off a warm, graceful singing voice when he briefly portrays a musician turned wino. He gives depth to his main characters, including the resourceful tween Eddie and his mother, Darlene, whose downfall over the course of the novel takes her from a life as a respectable college graduate to a crack-addicted slave on a modern plantation. A first-class performance of a darkly satirical novel. A Little, Brown hardcover. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


Library Journal
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Hannaham's second novel (after God Says No) is a disturbing but impressive exposé of the corporate farm industry. In the opening pages, Eddie Hardison, a 17-year-old young black man, has escaped from the farm, his hands missing, the stumps of his wrists covered in blood-soaked cloth. The story then flips back six years to happier times when Eddie lived with his parents in a small Louisiana town. His mother, Darlene, is college educated, while his father, Nat, is a grocery store owner and community organizer. Devastated by Nat's murder, Darlene barely hangs on, but after their business is burned to the ground, she disintegrates into addiction and prostitution. One night, Darlene, along with other homeless, is lured into a van with the promise of a better life at a mysterious farm. They realize too late that they have signed on to suffering and deprivation under the cruel Sextus and his crew. Eddie eventually finds Darlene, only to become entrapped himself. Verdict In a unique voice, Hannaham doesn't flinch as he draws attention to exploitation and racial injustice through memorable characters undaunted by their own personal suffering, wisecracking their country wisdom about survival and loyalty to family and friends. An eye-opening, standout novel. [See Prepub Alert, 8/22/14.]-Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Palisade, CO (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.


Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

*Starred Review* If The Great Gatsby was the Great American Novel of the twentieth century, Delicious Foods could be that of the early twenty-first. The hero is not a rich white man but a poor black kid in the South, Eddie, whose young life unravels when his activist father is murdered. Eddie's mom, Darlene, falls apart, each year bringing her closer to the streets, where eventually she is lured into a van to go work at Delicious Foods. The recruiters describe a rural farm with three-star accommodations, fair wages, and an open supply of crack cocaine, but only one of those promises proves to be true. Darlene and Eddie spend the next years sleeping on rusty bunk beds and working seven days a week for wages that are immediately eaten up by the company store and demerits doled out by their armed guards. When the owners of Delicious Foods are finally brought to justice, Darlene is faced with the painful choices of freedom: how to break free of her pain-erasing addiction, how to live without promises, how to feed her body and soul with truly good food that strengthens rather than kills. If the plot sounds like tough going, Hannaham's masterpiece is anything but. The writing makes it great, and the themes of pain, forgiveness, exploitation, and self-creation make it American. It is simply unmissable.--Weber, Lynn Copyright 2015 Booklist


Publishers Weekly
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Hannaham's (God Says No) seductive and disturbing second novel grips the reader from page one. In the prologue, 17-year-old Eddie has escaped from a farm somewhere in Louisiana, terrified he's headed closer to a place "where someone might capture or kill him, [rather than] away toward freedom." Hannaham safely delivers Eddie into a new life, though one full of agonizing memories, "like dark birds poised to attack him." The narrative then shifts back to the story of Eddie's mother, Darlene, an educated woman devastated by the loss her husband, Nat, a community organizer in a small town in Louisiana. In her grief, Darlene disappears into a fog of drug use; Scotty, who is the book's charismatic narrator for most of the proceedings, is in fact the literal personification of crack ("Her idea of heaven was that the two of us could kick it together [.] without nobody judging our relationship"). When Darlene is lured into taking a job on a mysterious farm, "it felt like the first luck Darlene had touched in the whole six years since she lost Nat." Instead, it's a horror show of human suffering, through which Darlene and Eddie struggle to reunite. Hannaham's skill at portraying the worst of human experience while keeping you glued to the page-and totally taken with the characters-is nothing short of magic. The light he shines on the realities of racial injustice, human trafficking, drug abuse, and exploitation make a deep imprint on the reader. But as devastating as Darlene, Eddie, and the other laborers' situations become, the heroic themes of love, forgiveness, and redemption carry this memorable story. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A Southern farm provides the backdrop for a modern-day slavery tale in this textured, inventive and provocatively funny novel.The second novel by Hannaham (Creative Writing/Pratt Institute; God Says No, 2009) opens with a harrowing prologue: Eddie, a black 17-year-old, is manically driving a truck from a Louisiana plantation that he's escaped. His hands have been cut off for reasons not explained till the end of the novel, and he's desperate to get to Minnesota. The story then snaps back to six years earlier, as Eddie's mother, Darlene, descends into crack addiction after the murder of her husband, a shop owner and community organizer who fell afoul of local bigots. While working as a prostitute, she and other addicts and indigents are corralled by a woman into a van and coerced to sign a contract that effectively makes them the property of Delicious Foods, a produce farm that plies its workers with drugs and alcohol to extract cheap, unquestioning labor. What's so funny about any of that? Partly Hannaham's daring approach to style and point of view: Much of the novel is narrated by the crack Darlene is addicted to. Nicknamed Scotty, the drug first shows up as a few rocks in her purse as she works the streets and throughout has a voice like the devil on your shoulder. ("I rushed into the few doubting and unbelieving parts left in Darlene's mind and I shouted, Babygirl, surrender to yes! Say yes to good feelings!") The plot turns on Darlene's struggles at Delicious Foods and Eddie's efforts to find her, and in the process, Hannaham finds room to comment on and satirize a variety of racial (and racist) iconographies, from watermelons to David Duke to voodoo to the sexual demands of plantation owners. In that context, the fate of Eddie's hands becomes a potent allegory for centuries of black men and women stripped of the power to control their destinies. A poised and nervy study of race in a unique voice. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.