Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home

Trail of Crumbs is well-written and full of descriptive, savory food writing, which is probably the book's strong point. The majority of the book, though, is about the author, who was adopted at three years old from Korea, and her search for an identity and true sense of home. Centered mainly around her relationship with an older French business man, Sunee chronicles their history, breakup, and fragile reconciliation. Overall, a very good read, recommended for anyone interested in adoption, food and or travel writing, difficult relationships, or the universal search for self.

When the author begins her memoir she is in her twenties and living with a very wealthy French businessman who has homes in Paris and Provence. Unhappy in that situation she leaves and begins what she describes as wandering, eventually ending up as food editor for an American magazine.

This is the second time I've tried this book, its been on my bookshelf two years, but I didn't finish it the first time and scanned the last quarter this time. I didn't like her much, she was greatly focused on herself, and the book just didn't click with me. Perhaps younger readers might like it better than I did.

This isn’t a rare story: that of a Korean adoptee coming of age struggling with feeling less than whole, feeling dissociated, feeling her differences and not fitting in anywhere. What makes this memoir different is the author’s sensory prose (which falters toward plaintiveness at times with the reliance on present tense), a tunnel-like focus on food and the inclusion of recipes. In the same vein as Ruth Reichl’s TENDER AT THE BONE, which also included recipes, there is a difficult mother, and youthful love that both heals old wounds and creates wounds of its own. The narrator, abandoned in a marketplace at age three, is adopted by a New Orleans couple and grows up with loving, food-centric grandparents in and around many kitchens show more and dining tables. Uncomfortable in her own skin and always on the run, Sunée travels to France, then Stockholm, where she meets Olivier, the founder of L’Occitaine. Many years her senior, wealthy, very French and controlling, a love affair of several years in Provence ensues. Olivier is determined to provide his love with everything she wants, in his vain (both meanings of the word) attempt to bring her happiness. She remains vague and unformed, and while she is an obvious beauty, an accomplished cook and self-claimed poet, she is unable to accept his gifts of wealth, privilege, a ready-made family and love. His love for her is suspect: is it her Asian difference that is so attractive to him; her unformed character into which he can then pour all his own needs and demands? After several years, she leaves him as a way to find herself and remains in Paris, going through a number of apparently insignificant love affairs, until her grandfather’s death makes her realize she wants him back. But Olivier is with another, older woman, his pride wounded and passion subsided. After some therapy along the way, she sees her path is back towards home and family, and that “she is hungry after all,” to use her frequent metaphor. It isn't an easy story to tell--writing wholly about being not whole when one isn't, quite--and thus the beginning sections about earlier childhood, where more distance has been gained, feel more assured. show less

This book was beautifully written! It led you through Kim's life - most of it centered in her 20's after she had moved out of the United States. It showed such a deep yearning to try to understand where she fit in, where she belonged, that you just wanted to reach into the book and take her in your arms to let her know that it would all be okay. By being "lost" by her mom, she grew up always searching, never quite feeling "at home."

I interpreted the title "Trail of Crumbs" to be a metaphor for two things. First, she used to have a dream about her and her brother as Hansel and Gretel, just waiting for the moon to come out so they could see the trail of crumbs - only to find out that they had been eaten by the birds. Secondly, how she show more seemed to feel most comfortable in the kitchen, regardless of where she was, cooking wonderful dishes for friends. So as she traveled, she left her own 'trail of crumbs'. Her book is doctored with tales of wonderful foods in exotic (to me) places. At the ends of many of the chapters are recipes of what sound like delicious dishes. I hope someday to have the courage to try some of them. (There is an index in the back of the book listing these recipes.)

You must read Kim's story of loss and loneliness as she loved, in her way, Olivier, but could not come to accept the life he created for her.
"Somehow, I thought, he'll never realize that the everything he wants to give me will never take away the nothing that I've always had." (p66)
Join her as she searches for acceptance and family and discovers a strength to let go of what cannot be changed and move forward. show less

This is a memoir by a young woman who was adopted by an American family from a Korean orphanage, moved to Europe and became involved with a much older wealthy man.The book tskes place mostly in their exquisite home in Provence and there is lots of porny food descriptions.

It's filled to the brim with self-pity. It's clear that she has huge abandonment issues that no amount of good eating can fill, but it's a little hard to feel someone who is in despair driving through the French countryside on the way back from a rose-petal facial. That's a problem I need to have!

This seemed like a book that, given some years and some distance, she might come to regret, especially the way she portrays her parents and siblings. As a mother myself, and show more twice Kim's age, I can't help but wonder about her adoptive mother's perspecitve and whether I too would question my child's life choices, especially if they involved moving to another continent, becoming involved with a much older partner (seperated and w/ children), and living with no other visible means of support than said partner. I might ask a few disapproving questions myself.
2 days ago | edit | delete show less

Trail of Crumbs is a memoir by Kim Sunee. At the age of three, Sunee was found abandoned at a Korean marketplace. She was adopted by a family residing in New Orleans. Sunee laters moves to Paris to live with her lover, Olivier Baussan who is founder of L’Occitane. However, this luschious life is not enough to keep Sunee happy. She constantly feels alone. Worse, Olivier becomes more and more controlling, and soon their relationship begins to falter.

At first, I really enjoyed this memoir. Living in Europe for over ten years is quite enviable and fun to read about. As I read more and more, I couldn’t understand some of Sunee’s choices. She was constantly unhappy with Olivier, yet I don’t recall her ever confronting him about it. It show more was as if she was afraid to speak. A relationship like that could not make anyone happy. I know from what I wrote, Trail of Crumbs does not seem to be about food much, and while food is certainly not the main focus, it is there. For example, a recipe is included after every chapter. The recipes were my favorite part of the book. show less

Trail of Crumbs is a story of Kim’s life from the day she was abandoned by her Korean mother and adopted by American parents at the age of three until the time when she is in her late twenties going back to New Orleans, the town she grew up with, after ten years of living in Europe. It is also a food memoir as hunger and the need to make wonderful food are two of the main forces in Kim’s life (she finishes chapters in the book with one or more recipes of very elaborate and sometimes complicated recipes). The whole memoir is mainly focused on Kim’s life when she enters the world of adulthood and decides to study and live in Europe. She takes us through the cities of Paris, Stockholm and then back to France as she grows more and show more more apart from her adopted family, especially her mother left in America. Kim finally lands in a place she thinks might be her true home. She moves in with Olivier, a wealthy founder of L’Occitane and tries to take on a role of the mistress of his beautiful house in Provence and a step-mother of Olivier’s eight-year-old daughter, Laure. But even having what most people can only dream of, Kim is still unhappy and still searching for the ‘real’ idea of home she claims she never really did get to grasp.

I’ll get right to the bottom of it all and put on the record I did not like Trail of Crumbs. It’s difficult to explain why because it is a memoir and it does deal with real people not some fictitious characters. I hate getting personal in my critique but Ms. Sunee is the main reason I didn’t like the book. Granted, she certainly has a talent for writing. It’s obvious from the first pages to the last. There really isn’t much, if anything that I could frown upon in terms of quality of the book. In that respect, Trail of Crumbs reads like a breeze.

However, if I was supposed to feel sorry for Kim I am confused because I didn’t. I did sympathize with her and did feel a lot of her pain initially when reading about how she was left by her mother on the sidewalk with only a piece of bread in her hands. The scared, three-year-old Kim spent three days on that sidewalk waiting for her mom to return. It did break my heart a little, I admit. But then, the whole book turns into a sort of bashing of Kim’s adopted parents, especially her mom, and Kim’s wallowing in how unhappy she is, how she can’t find her true self and how her life is pretty much worthless. Forget about having an opportunity to live and study and then work in not one but two beautiful countries in Europe. Forget that she used this opportunity when she was barely twenty (when most of us peons are stuck doing menial and boring jobs just to get us through college with as little debt as possible). And finally, don’t even pay attention to the fact that at the age of twenty one she captures the heart of a very wealthy man who gives Kim anything she wants, and I mean anything (he even buys her a bookstore just for poetry books, which brings nothing but financial loss)and truly loves her. I guess I did start to dislike Kim because of how selfish she turned out to be and how she would stamp on other people’s lives just because she couldn’t figure hers out. I hope that nowadays Ms. Sunee is able to look at how egocentric she really was in those days of what could have been pure happiness had she made an effort.

As far as food goes, the recipes were truly yummy and I would gladly eat the dishes if someone else prepared them for me. I am guilty of hating cooking. You have no idea how many times I have been told by others to start cooking because it had therapeutic qualities. Well, it doesn’t for me. And as delicious as all the dishes talked about in Trail of Crumbs must be, I am still not convinced or encouraged to try any of them. show less