Michelle Wildgen

Bec is a college student who is not sure she’s still interested in her major, working as a part-time waitress, and involved with a married man. Hoping to make some extra money over the summer, she answers an ad looking for a caregiver / helper for a woman suffering from ALS and is hired despite (or perhaps because of) her lack of relevant experience.

Kate is not an elderly person, but a vibrant 36-year-old former advertising executive now confined to a motorized wheelchair and having to show more rely on someone to bathe, dress and feed her. Slowly Bec becomes adept at the required tasks and comes to look on Kate as a friend and mentor.

This was at times very difficult to read. I could see Bec identifying more and more with Kate, and Kate relying on Bec as one would a best friend rather than an employed helper. And yet, Kate, kept a certain distance, because only she could, after all, truly experience this debilitating and ultimately terminal condition.

The title comes from an incident where Bec is speaking for Kate, whose speech is garbled at best. Kate, dissatisfied with Bec’s interpretation, informs her that when Bec is “translating” for Kate “You’re not you. You’re me.”

I knew “that scene” was coming and could hardly bear to watch it play out. And yet, there were still fifty pages to read. Fifty short pages for the author to resolve Bec’s grief and her sense of purpose. For her to find the path forward again.

It’s a great debut, and I’d be interested in reading more of her works. show less

This was a subtle, emotionally complex novel about a woman's relationship to self and others. The main character, Bec, is an aimless college student having an affair with a married professor. Taking a break from school, she gets a job as a caretaker for Kate, a young married woman with ALS. She performs intimate functions for her, often speaks for her, and becomes bonded with her to the point of identity confusion.

Bec is hard to like, especially when she's screwing around with someone else's show more husband. But regardless of any judgment the reader makes, it is easy to empathize with her as she gets more and more involved in Kate's life and Kate's feelings. I don't want to reveal too much of the plot - not that the book is extraordinarily plotty - but I will point out that I enjoyed the motif of food threading through the book.As the story progresses, Bec starts to find herself as a very talented cook - while in the employ of a woman surviving with a feeding tube. show less

Three brothers, two restaurants and falling in love are the ingredients in Michelle Wildgen's winning Bread and Butter, a quiet novel about familiar satisfactions.

Britt and Leo never really left their hometown. Leo started, and Britt soon came in to run the front, of Winesap, a refined yet comfortable restaurant named for the trees in their parents' yard. The restaurant is a well-oiled machine and the brothers are growing middle-aged settling in as essential cogs of that machinery.

Younger show more brother Harry has kicked around here and there, dividing his time between university courses and cooking. His exploits have included travel, a stint in an Alaskan salmon cannery and cookng at a self-sustaining restaurant on a Michigan island. He's back home now, too, and plans to open his own restaurant. The older two are skeptical but not unencouraging. Until Harry's vision clicks for one of the brothers and he becomes Harry's partner, dividing his time between the new place and Winesap.

At the same time, Britt, who appears as confident, is slightly rattled by the appearance of a confident woman who begins dining at Winesap regularly and who knows Harry. Then Leo's eyes are finally opened about someone who has been there the whole time.

That the ensuing complications and conflicts arise not from the men falling in love with these women -- although their falling in love opens them both up -- is one of the calm delights of this novel. It's a pleasure to read a book that is not about brothers fighting over women or fighting over who is smarter and the better entrepreneur and the more accomplished foodie.

Rather, it is a pleasure to read a novel about brothers who love each other, get to know each other and themselves a bit better, and who enjoy what they are doing.

Also, the parts about food are delicious. Wildgen knows what she is writing about, whether it is family or food. show less

I really enjoyed this. I meant to only skim the first few pages to confirm it was as boring as a lot of the reviews seemed to suggest, but I was hooked. The characters are all very rich. I feel like the author could have pulled many more stories out of them had she chosen to. Belle illustration d'histoire implosive as opposed to explosive.