Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me: Journals and Stories, 1933-1941

Among the most respected and admired of American writers of the 20th century, and particularly known for her peerless writing about food and all its delights and significanxes, MFK Fisher is a deeply compassionate commentator on people and the human condition. Her lucid style perfectly complements her wide-ranging insights on culture, family, friendship, and more. Among the last of her many volumes of reflection and contemplation, this deeply thougtful collection will be savored by her devoted readers and those coming to her work for the first time -- and almost certainly not the last.

If you are expecting only the crystal-like prose of "The Gastronomical Me" then you might be a bit disappointed. "Stay Me, O Comfort Me" is a compilation of MFK Fisher's journals, assembled as she promised, just before her death in 1992. Therefore, the book is a bit uneven, as it is comprised of letters, journal entries and finished pieces of writing as well. The writing dates back to the point where her marriage to Al Fisher begins to dissolve, covers her meeting Timmy (aka "Chexbres" aka Dillwin Parrish)--her beloved second husband. She and Timmy had only a few years together before his devastating death. Fisher deals here more closely with Parrish's untimely death, but even so, there is a large whole around the event. She claimed she was a shadow of herself after Parrish died. Maybe so, but she lead a long and productive life up until her death at age 84 in 1992.We are treated to some of the best prose Fisher could muster in this book, along with her journal musings and letters (from Mayo Clinic, where Parrish vainly sought treatment.) The journals and letters are revealing--this is how Fisher processed her thoughts on the way to writing some of the best biographical prose ever.One biographical sketch in the book, about a meeting with an old friend and her lesbian lover in soon-to-be-Nazi-occupied Paris is exceptional. How Fisher manages to telegraph what is going to happen before she actually writes the sentence always floors me. Her deft use of a few short words to warn, to forbode are always amazing. It could be compared to Lillian Hellman's writing (Pentimento, for example) but is so much better. As Mary MacCarthy points out, you have to have truth in your writing and no one handled the painful truth better than Fisher.

Books of journal entries run the risk of being too carefully selected, illuminating the subject too favorably in light of self-interest. However, the entries in this book (selected for publication by Fisher nearly 60 years after they were written) allow the reader to see a raw, sometimes peevish, boldly honest and human Fisher wrestling with notions of family, love, and a woman's place and identity in the 1930's and early 40's. Those who have cleaved to M.F.K. Fisher's writing to match their own love of food and wine to her sensibilities will discover, in this book, the grains of sand that abraded her hopes as she produced the pearls Serve It Forth, The Gastronimical Me, An Alphabet for Gourmets, Consider the Oyster, and How to Cook a Wolf. Those who do not know M.F.K. Fisher, nor have an interest in food writing, will recognize in Fisher's prose their own struggles to reconcile the events of their lives with all things sensual and essential. Memoirs like this inform us that the human events and longings recorded in the past are startlingly present in our own lives.