My Year of Meats
by Ruth L. Ozeki

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Book Reviews of My Year of Meats

Book Review: Savory!
Summary: 5 Stars

So it is with Jane Takagi-Little, the hero of Ruth Ozeki's "My Year of Meats." She first appears as an out-of-work (hungry) documentarian who gets an offer to work on a Japanese TV series to be called "My American Wife!" The series pretends to be about America and Americans, but really, "Meat is the message." Every week, a family of "real" Americans will share their life-and their favorite meat recipe. A council of beef producers (BEEF-EX) wants to sell Japanese housewives more meat. I was doubtful, but Jane needed to pay the rent. She bit.

Soon we're on the road with Jane and the meat show. The Japanese production crew needs her language and negotiating abilities to make TV programs with ordinary people. Right away we sense the exploitative flavor of making programs that are more interested in what people eat than who they are. But Jane is interested in people. Yet, she's definitely a edgy character-six androgynous feet tall with streaks of purple hair. First doubtful thing she does is take up with a vaguely menacing guy that she met through phone sex. Hmmm.

Just when we've had about enough of Jane for awhile, the narrative POV shifts to Akiko Ueno, a shy woman who watches My American Wife! at home in Japan and loves the show and really wants to eat more meat. Not coincidentally, Akiko is married to the sponsor's representative. And this is just the beginning of the complications.

Structurally, this is a thoroughly modern text. Instead of a straight narrative line, it weaves together first and third person voices, classical Japanese literature and, of course, meat recipes. But it's never heavy; in fact, it's increasingly hilarious. Some of the most riotous series are exchanges of faxes and emails between the producers and Jane. The slightly mangled syntax of Japanese English is letter perfect. And Jane's obsequious, double-edged replies are masterful-particularly for anyone who's ever had to write such a memo to ones higher-ups. Increasingly, Jane comes into conflict with her producers-ultimately with BEEF-EX itself-and the supposedly fawning memo is her first line of attack.

Why? Because Jane really does care. She finds beauty and nobility in the American heartland and she wants to tell the truth about it-even if that means making meat something of a side dish. And she has the artistic sensibilities to do a great job. First there's the Cajun couple who happen to have adopted 12 orphans of various races. (Think of all the meat they can eat.) Then there's the charming congregation of a primitive Baptist church. Trouble is, their best recipe is for fried chicken-not beef at all--and there's an odd thing about chicken. Wait a minute, these aren't the good corn-fed, wholesome Americans we had in mind. The producers are getting nervous. The pot really comes to a bubble when Jane decides to produce a segment about a really sweet lesbian couple. What's their favorite recipe? Unfortunately...

So now I'm sold. Jane's a keeper. This book is funny. But just when it seems like the novel is sorting itself out into a safe little farce, the gravy starts to burn. Jane starts doing research about the hormone DES-sometimes used as a feed supplement in livestock production. Here, things got distinctly personal for me. Wait a minute, DES? DES is what they mistakenly gave pregnant women back in the 50s and never found out that anything was wrong with it `til their daughters started developing cervical cancer 20 years out. My mother was part of the DES experiment in a Chicago research hospital-she got the placebo, or so I'm told. And every year or so, I get a letter from the DES research council checking to see if I'm alive. But what about Jane? Oh, this could be really bad...But I've got to stop writing about it before I give something away.

Ruth Ozeki is the genuine article. She hits on every level and sneaks around and hits again. The Penguin edition has an informative series of appendices. They include a remarkable interview with Ozeki that convincingly spells out how the book evolved from a series of sketches about her experiences doing TV production. That sense of evolving artistic sensibility and the adventure of documentary research shines through at every turn. I have some critical quibbles about the structure of the ending. But I'm going to zip my trap because I want everyone to read it for themselves. No dessert `til you've finished your main course.

Summary of My Year of Meats

TO: AMERICAN RESEARCH STAFF
FROM: Tokyo Office
DATE: January 5, 1991
RE: My American Wife!...

Here is list of IMPORTANT THINGS for My American Wife!

DESIRABLE THINGS:
1. Attractiveness, wholesomeness, warm personality
2. Delicious meat recipe (NOTE: Pork and other meats is second class meats, so please remember this easy motto: "Pork is Possible, but Beef is Best!")
3. Attractive, docile husband
4. Attractive, obedient children
5. Attractive, wholesome lifestyle
6. Attractive, clean house...

UNDESIRABLE THINGS:
1. Physical imperfections
2. Obesity
3. Squalor
4. Second class peoples

The series, My American Wife!, initally seems like a dream come true for Jane as she criss-crosses the United States filming a different American family each week for her Japanese audience. Naturally, the emphasis is on meat, and Ozeki has fun with out-there recipes such as rump roast in coke and beef fudge; but as Jane becomes more familiar with her subject, she becomes increasingly aware of the beef industry's widespread practice of using synthetic estrogens on their cattle and determines to sabotage the program.

Cut to Tokyo where Akiko Ueno struggles through the dull misery of life with her brutish husband, who happens to be in charge of the show's advertising. After seeing one of Jane's subversive episodes about a vegetarian lesbian couple, Akiko gets in touch and the two women plot to expose the meat industry's hazardous practices. Romance, humor, intrigue, and even a message--My Year of Meats has it all. This is a book that even a vegetarian would love.

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