Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater by Frank Bruni

The Barnes & Noble Review

There are two kinds of people in the world. Not cat and dog people, not chocolate and vanilla. There are, I'd propose, people who will read Frank Bruni's autobiography -- in particular, the scene where he's scarfing precooked Tyson chicken breasts, one-handed, in his car while driving home from the grocery store and think, Oh, ew…and then there are people, my people, who will read it and think, Well, duh. That stuff smells good! And when you're hungry, you're hungry!

My people know what it's like to watch a sibling push a half-full plate away and wonder, How do they do that? Don't they see there's more? We're the ones who've been on every diet, endured every form of exercise, and can tell you, at a glance, the calorie count and/or Weight Watchers point value of every morsel you could put in your mouth.

Bruni, the departing food critic for The New York Times, is one of us. He was born with an obdurate, ineluctable appetite, a voice inside that eternally cried, More, more, more and never once whispered, Enough.

The good news first: His memoir, Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater, pulls off the impressive feat of being both mouthwatering and heartbreaking. There are drool-worthy descriptions of the meals young Frank enjoyed: his mother's lasagna, his grandmother's "frits": balls of fried dough with mozzarella and tomato sauce at their center, "like miniature thick-crust pizzas turned inside out, or rather outside in, only better, so much better, than any pizza could be."

And, of course, there are the consequences: the love handles that Bruni disguised with a "shapeless, floppy, pale green Army-issue Winderbreaker," the author photo that he had digitally stretched to suggest slimness, the desperate measures, from a flirtation with bulimia to a stint on Mexican speed, that Bruni employed to keep the excess pounds away; the boys he wouldn't date or wouldn't sleep with because he didn't want to be seen shirtless.

It says a lot about the shame of being fat in America that, for Bruni, coming out of the closet proves less painful than hanging pants with a 40-inch waist inside of it. It's revealing, too, to see the author lavish more description on the meals -- as opposed to the men -- that he's loved. Bruni shucks partners like peel-and-eat shrimp shells while making his way ever upward, on the scale and toward the Times...but maybe that's not surprising. Boyfriends come and go; Ben & Jerry's is forever. And, as Bruni admits, his "life-defining relationship, after all, wasn't with a parent, a sibling, a teacher, a mate. It was with my stomach." (Mom places a distant second.)

The book's final section finds Bruni relatively happy, having mastered, mostly, the art of portion control and vigorous exercise. It offers a procedural on weight management if your job involves eating most of your meals at the best restaurants in the world (taste, don't finish), details about the mechanics of being a critic (fake names always, costumes on occasion), and the frisson of a few boldface names (who knew Sarah Jessica Parker had such problems with parsley?).

My only problem with Born Round isn't Bruni's fault, but it's worth mentioning that his book will get more than its fair portion of attention.

Part of this has to do with Bruni's job, more of it, with his gender. A woman with a painful relationship with food and her own body is a classic dog-bites-man story, where a guy willing to lament his jiggly chest and widening waistline, or describe how he cried in a country club basement after his brother called him fat, is a little more man-bites-dog.

There is also the double standard that still applies to memoirs. Where a man is deemed brave for revealing his flaws and insecurities, a woman telling similar stories can depend on being called whiny, neurotic, or just plain nuts.

Instead of serving Born Round as a one-dish supper, I'd put Bruni's book on the buffet with Valerie Frankel's Thin Is the New Happy, Betsy Lerner's Foot and Loathing: A Lament, and Judith Moore's excoriating Fat Girl: A True Story. There are plenty of painful, funny, revealing books about appetite and its consequences out there, books that shouldn't be ignored simply because their authors were born round -- and born female. --Jennifer Weiner

Jennifer Weiner is the author of the bestselling novels Good in Bed, In Her Shoes, Goodnight Nobody, Certain Girls, and (most recently) Best Friends Forever. She contributes to numerous magazines and blogs at jenniferweiner.blogspot.com.

From the Publisher

Frank Bruni was born round. Round as in stout, chubby, and hungry, always and endlessly hungry. He grew up in a big, loud Italian family in White Plains, New York, where meals were epic, outsize affairs. At those meals, he demonstrated one of his foremost qualifications for his future career: an epic, outsize love of food. But Bruni’s relationship with eating was tricky, and his difficulties with managing it began early.

When Bruni was named the restaurant critic for The New York Times in 2004, he knew enough to be nervous. The restaurant critic at the Times performs one of the most closely watched tasks in the epicurean universe; a bumpy ride was certain, especially for someone who had never written about food, someone who for years had been busy writing about politics, presidential campaigns, and the pope. What qualified him to be one of the most loved and hated tastemakers in the New York food world? Did his decades-long love affair with food suffice?

Food was his friend and enemy both, something he craved but feared, and his new-job jitters focused primarily on whether he’d finally made some sense of that relationship. In this coveted job, he’d face down his enemy at meal after indulgent meal. As his grandmother often put it, "Born round, you don’t die square." Would he fall back into his old habits or could he establish a truce with the food on his plate?

Born Round traces the highly unusual path Bruni traveled to become a restaurant critic; it is the captivating account of an unpredictable journalistic ride from an intern’s desk at Newsweek to a dream job at The New York Times, as well as the brutally honest story of Bruni’s lifelong, often painful, struggle with food. Born Round will speak to any hungry hedonist who has ever had to rein in an appetite to avoid letting out a waistband and will delight anyone interested in matters of family, matters of the heart, and the big role food plays in them.

The New York Times - Susan Orlean

If Born Round, Mr. Bruni's new memoir, just detailed his obsessive eating, his serial bouts of bulimia, the barometric rise and fall of his pants size, his frequent episodes of self-loathing punctuated by midnight snacks of enough roast chicken to feed a family, it would be an unexceptional book; after all, confession culture, and particularly food- and diet-related confession, has been popular for 20 years and pretty tedious for about 19. But Mr. Bruni's book is distinctive and intriguing on several accounts. The author is male (most diet memoirs are written by, and for, women); he writes well and insightfully (rare in this often sloppy genre); and in spite of his problems with food, he has spent the last five years as perhaps the most influential eater in America: the restaurant critic of The New York Times. … Mr. Bruni's insights into why he overloads on food -- that eating won him attention from his grandmother and mother, that it's partly genetic, that it provides him with something to blame for anything in life that doesn't go his way -- are not new, but they are so well put and genuinely felt that they seem fresh. When he finally approaches near-slimness, he writes that his behavior and elation “were those of someone living in a country he never thought he'd see, with privileges he never thought he'd have.” It's a perfect description of how consuming, literally and figuratively, body image is, and how long and lonely and endless the journey to that country -- what he calls "the far side of fatness" -- can be.

The New York Times Book Review - Dominique Browning

Bruni's prose is as robust as his story; he clearly enjoys writing as much as eating. He is also, at times, very funny. But the best thing about Born Round is that it is so embarrassingly, inspiringly honest. For a guy who has spent much of his life too mortified to take off his coat, this is one laid-bare story…His book does what a memoir should: it entertains and edifies, voicing pain that otherwise many endure in loneliness. It promises to give comfort to souls feeling confused or betrayed by their bodies. Such staggering generosity: Born Round is like the Italian dinners Bruni loves—served up noisy, fun, heaping and delicious. Bruni's readers, at least, are lucky he was born round.

The Washington Post - Joe Yonan

Bruni's unflinchingly honest look at himself as someone whose demons were always pushing or withholding food…Even the darkest periods are leavened by Bruni's black humor, which recalls that of Augusten Burroughs…or perhaps David Sedaris

Publishers Weekly

More the gourmand than the gourmet, former New York Times food critic Bruni takes us through his love/hate relationship with food and catalogues everyone who ever fed him and what they served, every diet he went on and his fraught—even dangerous—relationship with food in this excellent memoir. Bruni is a talented reader with an intelligent voice, a perfect pace, impish humor and a contagious passion for his topic. Dieters may crumble under the weight of so many lavish descriptions of luscious treats, but Bruni's frank depiction of his eating disorders and his charismatic delivery make for memorable listening. A Penguin Press hardcover (Reviews, July 6). (Sept.)

Barbara Jacobs - Booklist

There are very few emotions that New York Times restaurant critic Bruni's autobiography does not invoke-all well and good for what should be an army of readers. His book is funny and sad, heartwarming and anger provoking, and candid and cagey. The author (who also penned the more serious Ambling into History, 2002, about George W. Bush's 2000 campaign) chronicles his struggles with weight over the four decades of his life, through literally thick and thin. At the same time, his gay identity caused him to be overly conscious of his looks, his clothes, his image, sometimes to extreme degrees. Bruni turned to bulimia, colonic/toxic cleansing, drugs, and a variety of diets. What worked? A personal trainer named Aaron, new learned behaviors, and a gradually acquired philosophy of food: "I took another bite of the dessert, just so I didn't seem to be avoiding it. But I stopped there. Somehow, I'd learned to do that. At least for now." His very public, very successful journalistic career is also profiled, from a full scholarship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Newsweek intern to various New York Times positions here and abroad and, now, ironically, the conquering of his eating disorder during his present tenure as one of the most prestigious restaurant critics in the country. It reads like a novel, resonates like true life, and resounds with a wise life perspective. Starred Review.

Village Voice

It was a great surprise when, in 2004, The New York Times transferred Frank Bruni from his job as the paper's Rome bureau chief to the paper's restaurant critic. The journalist had made a name for himself covering the 2000 campaign and, later, foreign affairs. But what did he know about food? As it turned out, more than most. As Bruni would later write, "My life-defining relationship, after all, wasn't with a parent, a sibling, a teacher, a mate. It was with my stomach." . . . .[Born Round ] reads entirely differently from anything we've seen lately. The book does not contain paeans to the glories of locavorism. It's not a tale of bawdy kitchen exploits, or of finding your true self over a bowl of pasta in Rome . . . His memoir tells a story of food addiction, eating disorders, and a lifelong struggle with his voracious appetite . . . Born Round makes for a breezy read. Even at its darkest, it goes down easy . . . After reading Bruni for years, it feels odd to suddenly know his secrets, which put his reviews in a new context. His pieces were always well written, but hinted little of the big, funny personality that shines in the book.

Library Journal

Should best-selling author Bruni (Ambling into History) ever tire of journalism, he could easily make a career out of audiobook narration. In this self-read memoir, he opens with his 2004 appointment as restaurant critic for the New York Times, then tells of his lifelong struggle with food and weight (at his heaviest, he weighed 270 pounds). How he both deals with and fails to deal with his addiction to food makes this a fascinating listen. Compliments to Bruni for serving up such a candid and enthralling tale; highly recommended. [The review of the New York Times best-selling Penguin hc read, "Bruni's painfully honest, tartly humorous life story will…be a hit with anyone who has struggled with the numbers on the scale," LJ 8/09.—Ed.]—Cliff Glaviano, Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH

Kirkus Reviews

Foreign correspondent Bruni (Ambling Into History: The Unlikely Odyssey of George W. Bush, 2002, etc.) faces a menu of challenges after taking a coveted job as the New York Times restaurant critic. Growing up eating the lavish meals cooked by his Italian mother, it was apparent early on that Bruni would be forever consumed by food. But the author didn't just love to eat; he was obsessed with it, tossing down triple helpings and throwing tantrums when his mother refused further offerings. "I had been a plump infant and was on my way to becoming an even plumper child," he writes, "a ravenous machine determined to devour anything in its sights." Self-conscious about his expanding midriff, the soon-to-be journalist's disorder manifested into bulimia by college in an on-again/off-again battle that would stay with him through his tenure as a Times White House correspondent and later during a post in Italy. When he received the offer to sacrifice his European spot to become the Times' restaurant critic, Bruni was torn. Living in Italy was a lifelong dream fulfilled. More importantly, with his history of eating problems, could he maintain the healthy waistline he'd finally achieved when faced with plate after plate of New York's finest cuisine? "This decision is insane," he writes. "But it was also irresistible, even poetic, the kind of ultimate dare or dead reckoning that a good narrative called for." Taking the job, Bruni eased into the critic game like a pro, masking his identity from keen restaurateurs whose staffs were on constant alert. Keeping a constant eye on the scale, he often donned hilarious disguises to outfox his subject's purveyors, and hit the treadmill and Pilates classes tooutrun his caloric demons. A full dish of humor garnished with ample trimmings of self-examination. Agent: Lisa Bankoff/ICM

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