Cleaving by Julie Powell (Penguin, £8.99) (From The Northern Echo)

Cleaving by Julie Powell (Penguin, £8.99)

11:03am Saturday 28th August 2010 in

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JULIE POWELL was the New York blogger who spent a year cooking dangerously that led to the film Julie and Julia. It won her fame and fortune, fans and friends, but at the back of it all there was always her devoted husband, Eric.

And then it all went wrong.

Just when everything seemed perfect, and she was enjoying her success, Julie was contacted by an exlover with a sadistic streak. She also took up butchery. This book is the tale of her affair and of how she learnt to be a butcher. It’s a memoir of marriage and meat and makes for a gory story.

The butchery parts are detailed, graphic and curiously poetic, even when describing boning a pig and the intricate descriptions of muscle and fat and sliding the knife between them.

It’s the adultery that’s bloody and horrible and raw. The result is a book that makes the reader feel definitely queasy.