Conversations with M. F. K. Fisher

This collection of interviews captures the conversations of one of the most prominent prose writers in the Unites States. About her the Chicago Sun-Times says, “She is to literary prose what Sir Laurence Olivier is to acting or Willie Mays is to baseball.” These interviews reveal her uncompromising and frequently contradictory attitudes toward the luxuries and necessities of gastronomy, the idea that sensual appreciation, in all aspects of life, is or should be necessary. In her conversations, M. F. K. Fisher often returns to the complexities of her life. Other recurring subjects in these interviews include the nature of aging, the differences between men and women, and her own relationship to her work, which she describes with precision and a selective memory. These pieces give us a view of M. F. K. Fisher in motion―speaking and changing her mind at will, with fierce wit, unable to tolerate simplistic strategies of thinking and living.