Aimee Bender
Author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
About the Author
As a child, Aimee Bender enjoyed reading fairy tales, particularly the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. She began creating her own stories, and later, as an elementary school teacher, she enjoyed telling her students both traditional fairy tales and stories she had made up herself. Eventually, show more she began writing short stories, which have been published in a variety of magazines, including Granta, GQ, Story, and The Antioch Review. Her first book, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, a collection of her stories, was published in 1998. Bender's work is intended for adults rather than children, but many of her short stories could be described as contemporary fairy tales. Bender's stories often include some of the same elements that she enjoyed encountering in fairy tales, such as of magic, fantasy, surprise, humor, and absurdity. Although she has found success as a writer, Bender continues to teach because she enjoys the interaction with others and feels she needs that contact to balance the solitude that is required for her writing. In addition to teaching elementary school, she has taught in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program and in the writing program at the University of California at Irvine, where she received her M.F.A. Bender lives in Los Angeles. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Aimee Bender
A State Of Variance 2 copies
The Rememberer {short story} 1 copy
Drunken Mimi [short story] — Author — 1 copy
The Doctor and the Rabbi 1 copy
Bender Aimee 1 copy
Among Us [Short Story] 1 copy
The Healer (short story) 1 copy
Associated Works
My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales (2010) — Contributor — 1,111 copies, 27 reviews
This Is Not Chick Lit: Original Stories by America's Best Women Writers (2006) — Contributor — 361 copies, 3 reviews
McSweeney's 12: Unpublished, Unknown, and/or Unbelievable (2003) — Contributor — 290 copies, 4 reviews
Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process (2017) — Contributor — 165 copies, 5 reviews
The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction (2008) — Contributor — 140 copies, 2 reviews
The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3: Subversive Stories about Sex and Gender (2007) — Contributor — 98 copies, 2 reviews
Death by Pad Thai and Other Unforgettable Meals (2015) — Author, some editions — 84 copies, 1 review
A Darker Shade of Noir: New Stories of Body Horror by Women Writers (2023) — Contributor — 65 copies, 18 reviews
Sideshow: Ten Original Tales of Freaks, Illusionists and Other Matters Odd and Magical (2009) — Contributor — 64 copies, 1 review
Fantastic Women: 18 Tales of the Surreal and the Sublime from Tin House (2011) — Contributor — 61 copies, 2 reviews
Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers (2019) — Contributor — 59 copies, 13 reviews
Selected Shorts: A Touch of Magic (Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story) (2009) — Contributor — 25 copies, 4 reviews
You Must Be This Tall to Ride: Contemporary Writers Take You Inside the Story (2009) — Contributor — 21 copies
The Artists' and Writers' Cookbook: A Collection of Stories with Recipes (2016) — Contributor — 19 copies
The Antioch Review: Volume 59, Number 2 (Spring 2001) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1969-06-28
- Gender
- female
- Education
- University of California, San Diego
University of California, Irvine (MFA ∙ creative writing) - Occupations
- novelist
short story writer
creative writing instructor - Organizations
- University of Southern California
- Awards and honors
- Pushcart Prize (2x)
Nominee for James Tiptree, Jr. Award (2005) - Relationships
- Sebold, Alice (friend)
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Los Angeles, California, USA
- Places of residence
- Los Angeles, California, USA
- Map Location
- Los Angeles, California, USA
Members
Reviews
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender is an exploration of the emotions captured in food. Although Bender specializes in placing the extraordinary in ordinary settings, there's still a recognizable truth to what Rose Edelstein experiences.
Just before her 9th birthday, as Rose and her mother are baking a chocolate frosted lemon cake, she realizes the cake she and her mother have made countless times doesn't taste right. It's not that the recipe is different or that the show more ingredients are off. No — there's a crushing sadness to it.
From then on, Rose can taste the stories behind every meal she eats. It's not just emotions, but also the foods' origins. She learns a new geography based on the things her meals tell her. In order to keep her sanity in all this on rush of information and raw emotion, Rose must learn how and what to eat.
The book follows Rose through her teenage years into early adulthood. She grows into her special ability and finds herself in the process. Along the way she learns she is not alone in having powers — her brother and her father.
As with Bender's short stories, Rose's narration is told with detachment. It's not that she doesn't care — it's just that she is looking back on her life through the new normal. The events of her life, while extraordinary are just part of who she is.
Although the first couple of chapters took some getting used to, I loved watching Rose grow. I recommend reading Bender's book in conjunction with the memoir: A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg. show less
Just before her 9th birthday, as Rose and her mother are baking a chocolate frosted lemon cake, she realizes the cake she and her mother have made countless times doesn't taste right. It's not that the recipe is different or that the show more ingredients are off. No — there's a crushing sadness to it.
From then on, Rose can taste the stories behind every meal she eats. It's not just emotions, but also the foods' origins. She learns a new geography based on the things her meals tell her. In order to keep her sanity in all this on rush of information and raw emotion, Rose must learn how and what to eat.
The book follows Rose through her teenage years into early adulthood. She grows into her special ability and finds herself in the process. Along the way she learns she is not alone in having powers — her brother and her father.
As with Bender's short stories, Rose's narration is told with detachment. It's not that she doesn't care — it's just that she is looking back on her life through the new normal. The events of her life, while extraordinary are just part of who she is.
Although the first couple of chapters took some getting used to, I loved watching Rose grow. I recommend reading Bender's book in conjunction with the memoir: A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg. show less
(Review duplicates my LJ entry)
Usually I'm not very interested in the books that we read in my book group, but the most recent pick moved me tremendously. It had lots of things I like: a child viewpoint character (at least to start with; she's 22 by the end), characters who are all sympathetic in their way, even the prickly ones, and deep deep love. It also had something I wasn't expecting in a so-called literary novel: superpowers.
The novel is The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee show more Bender. It was sad, yes, but in a good way.
The main character, Rose, can tell the emotional state of everyone connected with the production of whatever food she's eating. This isn't just a matter of biting into the casserole your mother slams down on the table and saying, Deanna Troi-like, "I sense anger!" It's more complete and nuanced than that:
I know a lot of people get annoyed at the trope in genre fiction of the reluctant superhero, who doesn't want her powers. But in this case, what the power represents is intense empathy, empathy with individual people, and by extension, maybe, with the human condition? And I imagine that really could be overwhelming. Rose finds different ways of coping with her gift, but other members of her family, who have gifts of their own, have a harder time of it. She reflects on this near the end of the book:
The way her brother copes is extreme, surreal, and ultimate, and Rose's way of accepting it seems, to me, to show that deep deep love I was mentioning. Some people are hard to love, but we can still love them, and some things are sad, but we can find a way to bear them.
And the book shows all that, and manages to be not at all as ponderous as this LJ entry. It's actually quite funny in places--and so perceptive about people, and how they behave.
I was really moved and impressed. Book group books, every now and then you're all right. show less
Usually I'm not very interested in the books that we read in my book group, but the most recent pick moved me tremendously. It had lots of things I like: a child viewpoint character (at least to start with; she's 22 by the end), characters who are all sympathetic in their way, even the prickly ones, and deep deep love. It also had something I wasn't expecting in a so-called literary novel: superpowers.
The novel is The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee show more Bender. It was sad, yes, but in a good way.
The main character, Rose, can tell the emotional state of everyone connected with the production of whatever food she's eating. This isn't just a matter of biting into the casserole your mother slams down on the table and saying, Deanna Troi-like, "I sense anger!" It's more complete and nuanced than that:
It was a homemade ham-and-cheese-and-mustard sandwich, on white bread, with a thin piece of lettuce in the middle. Not bad, in the food part. Good ham, flat mustard from a functional factory. Ordinary bread. Tired lettuce-pickers. But in the sandwich as a whole, I tasted a kind of yelling, almost. Like the sandwich itself was yelling at me, yelling love me, love me, really loud. The guy at the counter watched me closely.
Oh, I said.
My girlfriend made it, he said.
Your girlfriend makes your sandwiches? asked George.
She likes doing it, said the guy.
I didn't know what to say. I put the sandwich down.
What? said the guy.
The sandwich wants you to love it, I said.
The guy started laughing. My voice, though, was dull. George reached over and took a bite. Is that ham? he said.
The sandwich? asked the guy.
Was yelling at me, I said, closing my eyes. It was yelling at me to love it.
--Aimee Bender, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (New York: Doubleday, 2010), 65.
I know a lot of people get annoyed at the trope in genre fiction of the reluctant superhero, who doesn't want her powers. But in this case, what the power represents is intense empathy, empathy with individual people, and by extension, maybe, with the human condition? And I imagine that really could be overwhelming. Rose finds different ways of coping with her gift, but other members of her family, who have gifts of their own, have a harder time of it. She reflects on this near the end of the book:
And just as he said it, like a bird across the sky, my brother flickered through my mind, and although the thought was half formed, it occurred to me that meals were still meals ... and I could pick and chose what I could eat and what I couldn't ... but what if whatever Joseph had felt every day had no shape like that? Had no way to be avoided or modified? Was constant? (266)
The way her brother copes is extreme, surreal, and ultimate, and Rose's way of accepting it seems, to me, to show that deep deep love I was mentioning. Some people are hard to love, but we can still love them, and some things are sad, but we can find a way to bear them.
And the book shows all that, and manages to be not at all as ponderous as this LJ entry. It's actually quite funny in places--and so perceptive about people, and how they behave.
I was really moved and impressed. Book group books, every now and then you're all right. show less
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE ABOUT?
I don't think I have it in me to do a decent job of this, so I'm just going to use the text from the flap of the dust jacket.
On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's show more emotions in the slice.
She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose. Anything can be revealed at any meal. She can't eat her brother Joseph's toast; a cookie at the local bakery is laced with rage; grape jelly is packed with acidic resentment.
Rose's gift forces her to confront the secret knowledge all families keep hidden—truths about her mother’s life outside the home, her father's strange detachment, Joseph's clash with the world.
Yet as Rose grows up, she realizes there are some secrets that even her taste buds cannot discern.
PARTICULARLY SAD
By page 15 of the novel, I'd already decided the title was pretty descriptive of the book. That impression never left off. Every page drips with sadness—even the most joyful moments of the characters' lives are draped in it. There's no joy, no happiness—the best is some contentedness and satisfaction that Rose finds in the last twenty pages. I'm not sure I remember a novel so consistent in the emotional tone.
SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE
This is a split decision for me. The Bender's prose and language deserve at least 4 stars, maybe more. But for my reaction to the book? It's probably a 2.
Aimee Bender can write—her language is fantastic. The prose is as delicious as the food described isn't. This is the kind of writing that demands attention (maybe it demands a bit too loudly on occasion). If not for what comes in the next paragraph, I'd be requesting every one of her books from the library as soon as I publish this post.
But I found the style off-putting, I didn't care about a single one of these characters and their various plights. I wasn't that curious about Rose's "special skills" (or any others displayed by characters). I didn't care about the story, or anything else. While the writing was dazzling, it seemed distant and detached (a neat trick for a first-person narrative)—and it kept me distant and detached.
I absolutely expect to be the exception to the rule here, that just about everyone else fawns all over this. But...oh, well. For my money, if you want something written like this but with characters/situations/writing that engages you, you're better off picking up a Tiffany McDaniel novel. show less
---
WHAT'S THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE ABOUT?
I don't think I have it in me to do a decent job of this, so I'm just going to use the text from the flap of the dust jacket.
On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's show more emotions in the slice.
She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose. Anything can be revealed at any meal. She can't eat her brother Joseph's toast; a cookie at the local bakery is laced with rage; grape jelly is packed with acidic resentment.
Rose's gift forces her to confront the secret knowledge all families keep hidden—truths about her mother’s life outside the home, her father's strange detachment, Joseph's clash with the world.
Yet as Rose grows up, she realizes there are some secrets that even her taste buds cannot discern.
PARTICULARLY SAD
By page 15 of the novel, I'd already decided the title was pretty descriptive of the book. That impression never left off. Every page drips with sadness—even the most joyful moments of the characters' lives are draped in it. There's no joy, no happiness—the best is some contentedness and satisfaction that Rose finds in the last twenty pages. I'm not sure I remember a novel so consistent in the emotional tone.
SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE
This is a split decision for me. The Bender's prose and language deserve at least 4 stars, maybe more. But for my reaction to the book? It's probably a 2.
Aimee Bender can write—her language is fantastic. The prose is as delicious as the food described isn't. This is the kind of writing that demands attention (maybe it demands a bit too loudly on occasion). If not for what comes in the next paragraph, I'd be requesting every one of her books from the library as soon as I publish this post.
But I found the style off-putting, I didn't care about a single one of these characters and their various plights. I wasn't that curious about Rose's "special skills" (or any others displayed by characters). I didn't care about the story, or anything else. While the writing was dazzling, it seemed distant and detached (a neat trick for a first-person narrative)—and it kept me distant and detached.
I absolutely expect to be the exception to the rule here, that just about everyone else fawns all over this. But...oh, well. For my money, if you want something written like this but with characters/situations/writing that engages you, you're better off picking up a Tiffany McDaniel novel. show less
I loved this book. Bender has a way of conveying the emotions of the characters in a way that feels subtle enough to be real and yet strong enough to make the feelings comprehensible. Too many times, when I read a sad book, it feels heavy handed. None of that comes across here, and perhaps others would disagree that it is a sad book, but for me I truly felt the longing, the isolation, and the sometimes depression of Rose Edelstein. Others criticize the book for its "magical" aspects, but at show more the end of the day, I felt like the book fulfilled one of the missions of magical realism for me, namely that the magic allowed me to understand the characters in a way that simple realism would not be able to (and, of course, none of this story would be possible without the magic).
Anyone who has ever felt different in a way that cannot be explained or who has felt isolated from the world at large will enjoy this book. If nothing else, Bender's prose is simple and yet gorgeous and easy to get lost in. The ending was somewhat heartbreaking for me personally, but completely in keeping with the rest of the book.
What I will take away from this book was the relationships between the family members. The emotional storm of Rose's mother and her love for Rose (but her selfishness as well for her own needs), her father's seeming quiet detachment from her and the rest of the family (but of course, a lot is going on there that you only find out about later), and especially her relationship with her brother. Every character felt full and complete (a rarity, it seems, in books these days) and I really have not enjoyed a book this much in quite a long time. show less
Anyone who has ever felt different in a way that cannot be explained or who has felt isolated from the world at large will enjoy this book. If nothing else, Bender's prose is simple and yet gorgeous and easy to get lost in. The ending was somewhat heartbreaking for me personally, but completely in keeping with the rest of the book.
What I will take away from this book was the relationships between the family members. The emotional storm of Rose's mother and her love for Rose (but her selfishness as well for her own needs), her father's seeming quiet detachment from her and the rest of the family (but of course, a lot is going on there that you only find out about later), and especially her relationship with her brother. Every character felt full and complete (a rarity, it seems, in books these days) and I really have not enjoyed a book this much in quite a long time. show less
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