Delicious Foods

Delicious Foods (2015)
by James Hannaham

So, it's been a REALLY long time since I last posted anything on here, but it seems apt to start back with a bang, much like Delicious Foods itself.

In the first few pages of Delicious Foods, we meet Eddie. It's an introduction with some impact: "After escaping from the farm, Eddie drove through the night. Sometimes he thought he could feel the phantom fingers brushing against his thighs, but above the wrists he now had nothing. Dark stains covered the terry cloth wrapped around the ends of his wrists; his mother had stanched the bleeding with rubber cables". It's certainly enough to get you paying attention right from the first sentence, and Delicious Foods never really lets up until the very last pages, where we finally learn what happened to Eddie's hands.

Delicious Foods tells the story of Eddie and his mother Darlene. Following the death of her much-loved husband, Darlene has developed something of a drug addiction. By the time Eddie is eleven years old, his mother is working as a prostitute to fund a pretty intense crack cocaine habit. One night out working, Darlene is lured away with promises of a good job on a farm with a steady income and a ready supply of crack. She ends up working for a company called Delicious Foods and it would be fair to say that life on the farm isn't quite so rosy as she might have expected. This leaves eleven-year-old Eddie alone in the city, on a panicked search for his mother, despite very little apparent interest from anyone else.  

Darlene is a woman at the bottom of the heap. She's fallen from lofty heights - once a university-educated mother of one, married to the love of her life (dreamy and intellectual activist, Nat) and co-owner of a successful business, Darlene's worldview is utterly shattered when Nat's political views get him killed. When we first meet Darlene, she is a living embodiment of the "crack whore" cliche - toothless, stumbling, taunted but apparently oblivious to her own situation, singing and smiling vacantly. She's the type of character normally presented as a figure of ridicule and distaste, but James Hannahan handles it much more subtly than this, Darlene is damaged and sad, but she's also somehow relatable and - despite her many poor decisions - likeable. When Darlene is behaving ridiculously while under the influence of her drug, you're embarrassed for her as a reader, but you also understand what she's thinking. It's a testament to the author's considerable talent that he can get a reader to identify with a hopelessly broken drug addict.
Darlene also provides a unique perspective on race relations in America as she first finds joy and acceptance at her progressive and enlightened university, only to come face-to-face with a much harsher reality when Nat is killed. Later she experiences a kind of modern-day slavery on the farm (as well as being constantly enslaved to her drugs) and her heartbroken attitude towards her own situation makes it truly affecting.

The narrator for most of the book is "Scotty". Tough, charming and charismatic, Scotty is crack cocaine. No, literally. The majority of this book is narrated on behalf of Darlene by her one true love, crack. Obviously this is a pretty ambitious move and could have misfired horribly, but again James Hannahan handles it with such talent and class that it is never gimmicky or silly. It just feels right, and it gives even more insight into the hold that the drugs have over Darlene - Scotty is always there for Darlene. Scotty loves her and accepts her when nobody else will. Scotty never judges. As Scotty himself says, "Not to be egotistical or nothing, but I am irresistible". It's a truly unique perspective and it's masterfully handled.

Author James Hannahan - this man is an absolute genius.

The Delicious Foods farm is deeply creepy - not least because places like this really do exist. Lured to rural Louisiana with promises of good honest work for good honest pay (and plenty of drugs on the side), the workers are instead charged exorbitant fees for transport, accommodation and drugs so that they fall deeper into debt daily, their meager wages failing to make a dent in the enormous amounts they owe to their employers.  The workers tell themselves it's not slavery because they're getting paid, but the threats, beatings and generally awful work conditions tell a different story. A quick google search will give you plenty of real-life examples of this - James Hannahan apparently based Delicious Foods on the somewhat unusual case of the Bulls-Hit Ranch in Florida (Google it, it's pretty disturbing) but there are countless other examples of this treatment happening around the world, largely to illegal immigrants who feel that they have no other options. According to the International Labour Union, at least 12.3 million people are currently victims of forced labour. Clearly modern-day slavery is alive and well, and Delicious Foods paints a chillingly convincing picture of just how easy it could be to fall into such an awful situation.

This actually happened. Pretty horrifying, right?

Delicious Foods is dark and upsetting. Amongst other things, it explores themes of racism, drug addiction, parental neglect, workplace abuse, prostitution, kidnapping, assault and murder. And yet, at it's heart Delicious Foods is a hopeful book. It's about the terrible things people can do to each other, but also the wonderful things people can do for each other. It's about forgiveness and optimism and redemption. More than anything else, it's a story about love - yes, part of that is Darlene's self-destructive love for Scotty, but a larger part is the love that Eddie has for his mother and the once-upon-a-time love between Darlene and Nat. There are moments of sweetness and light; there are even moments of real humour, and while there's no happy-ever-after ending, Delicious Foods leaves you with the feeling that maybe - just maybe - everything might turn out ok.

Delicious Foods has received plenty of well-deserved recognition and appeared on plenty of must-read lists for 2015 (New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Kirkus Reviews, Los Angeles Times, and Publisher's Weekly all featured it on their best-books-of-2015 lists), so chances are that you've already read this book. If not, you're really missing out - read this book immediately!

10/10