Book review: The Middlesteins: A Novel

This is an intriguing book that delves through relationships in a family that is being torn apart by morbid obesity. The story gives a glimpse into the childhood of Edie, the woman who would grow up to be a bitter, angry, compulsive eater. She didn't always eat to bury her feelings, in her younger years she was taught that food is love and food is made from love. In her senior years, Edie's health condition is so serious she needs to undergo her second surgery in one year and the doctors and her family are doubtful it will help. Nothing seems to quell her desire to eat junk in enormous portions. The sickness leads to the ending of her 30 year marriage, and the children and grandchildren resent the father for leaving their ill mother, for giving up on her. In the end, after Edie's inevitable death, family relations remain strained, but her estranged husband realizes why Edie ate such a disgusting amount of food so often, because it is a great way to escape. The novel is compelling and it was as hard to put down as a bag of potato chips and onion dip in the hands of Edie Middlestein. However, the story is a bit depressing and there is no hope to be found as the situations unfold, there is only the belief that things will return to a semi normal state in the decades to come.