MILK FED by Melissa Broder - REVIEW

 

I went into MILK FED (Scribner) blind. I hadn't read Melissa Broder's previous novel, THE PISCES which just about the whole world went crazy for. It was the cover of MILK FED that caught my eye. So imagine being thrilled and shocked when delving in, and finding it easily one of the most filthy, hilarious, embarrassing (I'm glad I was reading it on my Kindle) and and insightful stories on how our parents ruin us.

Rachel is a 24 year-old lapsed Jew, who counts calories like its a religion. By day she slogs at a talent agency, before heading off to the gym where she sweats on the elliptical to no where and finishes the day performing comic sets at a nightclub, "This Show Sucks."

"Do you want to be chubby or do you want to get boyfriends?" 

Rachel's mother has been on her about weight and getting a boyfriend, since she was born and her therapist, Dr. Mahjoub suggests a communication detox for ninety-days. Rachel's mother freaks out, whining about being accused of being a "bad mother," but Rachel embraces the challenge.

Rachel meets Miriam, an Orthodox Jew whose family owns, Yo!Good!, the yogurt shop she regularly goes to. She's shocked by Miriam's comfort in her zaftig body, but slowly falls in love with her layers, clove cigarette habit and desire to get drunk at every opportunity. She hooks up with Miriam and together she begins eating food for pleasure and their relationship goes from "platonic amusement to amorous hysteria." Rachel finds enjoyment in Miriam's family's traditions, faith and loving relationship with her mother.

MILK FED is a journey of self-discovery, the desire of food, sex, family and god. There's a sense of magical realism to the story. Broder takes every opportunity to push the story to the edge of impossibility. 

Warning: explicit sex and triggers for anyone who may have eating disorders.

Melissa Broder is the author of the novel THE PISCES, the essay collection SO SAD TODAY, and five poetry collections, including SUPERDOOM: Selected Poems (Summer 2021) and LAST SEXT.

Broder has written for The New York Times, Elle.com, VICE, Vogue Italia, and New York Magazine‘s The Cut.

Poems appear in POETRY, The Iowa Review, Guernica, Fence,  et al. She is the winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry.

Broder received her BA from Tufts University and her MFA from City College of New York. She lives in Los Angeles.

www.melissabroder.com 

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