Overview
Charlotte falls in love with chocolate, and love, in childhood, when her father gives her Hershey bars in lieu of kisses. At 39, she leaves her husband and makes a pilgrimage to Europe, in search of the perfect chocolate, and the perfect man. Complete with evocative photographs of chocolate, the addresses of the best chocolate makers in the US and Europe, and several quintessential chocolate recipes, Bittersweet Journey is a fable for adults--an exploration of the dark and erotic underside of women's mysterious passion for chocolate, and men.About the Author
Enid Futterman is also a lyricist and librettist. She is the co-author (with composer Michael Cohen) of I Am Anne Frank, a song-cycle, I Remember, a chamber piece for mezzo-soprano, flute, harp and cello, and Yours, Anne, a musical theatre piece, all based on the diaries of Anne Frank. I Am Anne Frank was performed by Andrea Marcovicci, Stephen Bogardus, and the American Symphony Orchestra at Lincoln Center in October 1996, and is available on CD. I Remember was commissioned for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and received its world premiere there in February 1996, its New York premiere at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall in April 1997, and performances at the Bronfman Festival in Sun Valley in July 1998, and the Ravinia Festival in Chicago in September 1998. It is available on CD from Newport Classics.
As lyricist and book-writer of Portrait of Jennie (music by Howard Marren), Ms. Futterman received the Richard Rodgers Production Award and the Seagram's New Musical Theatre Award. The work has been produced by the New Federal Theater in New York, the Berkshire Theater Festival in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and in Japan. She has also written book and lyrics for An Open Window (music by Sarah Ackerman), which was produced by the Ten Minute Musicals Project in San Francisco. Ms. Futterman lives in New York City and Columbia County.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewEnid Futterman's Bittersweet Journey is far from your typical first fiction. Designed by Alexander Isley and sumptuously packaged, the book looks just like a box of expensive chocolates. Using high-quality paper throughout, Bittersweet Journey is also full of the author's color photographs, exotic recipes, and the addresses and phone numbers of the real chocolatiers visited by the book's protagonist.
In this delightfully delicious novel, the powerful forces of obsession and chocolate are explored by Charlotte, a passionate woman who leaves a "successful" marriage to seek out more love, more sex, and more chocolate. "Eating chocolate," Charlotte realizes after cheating on her husband and polishing off a jar of chocolate sauce, "was like having a slut for a best friend. It was a bad influence."
Searching for some sort of satisfaction, Charlotte travels the globe. Her cravings take her from Greenwich Village to the chocolate capitals of the world — Paris, Vienna, Brussels, Zurich, New Hampshire, and even Hawaii. Charlotte continually finds romance in these various locales, but her love affairs leave her unsatisfied and hungry yet again.
Charlotte's journey ultimately leads her home to Brooklyn, where her true love has been waiting all along. Throughout this journey, Enid Futterman's gorgeous photos complement the text and provide readers with an opportunity to explore the dark and erotic relationships of chocolate and love. The ideal Valentine's Day gift, Bittersweet Journey is the perfect book for lovers of all kinds.
David Finkle
Enid Futterman is not the first to write about chocolate and desire with great sensuality, but she may be the most intense. At its best, Futterman's writing recalls Marguerite Duras, another writer known for transforming her erotic life into smoldering fiction. Here is a woman whose obsession surely outstrips your own, and you are unlikely to have made a pilgrimage halfway around the globe to weigh the relative merits of the finest bonbons, ganaches, and truffes. Along with Charlotte's internal and external journeys, true chocolate junkies will be euphoric on finding the addresses for all the chocolate shops to which she refers. She also throws in four recipes a la Nora Ephron and Laura Esquivel. But Futterman's passion doesn't stop at the written word. A superb photographer, she accompanies Bittersweet Journey with pictures of chocolate viewed waaaay up close. There's such a superabundance of chocolate here, we can be grateful she left one thing out--a calorie count.— Trenton Times
Henry Jaglom
An extraordinary treat, Bittersweet Journey is a beautifully poetic first fiction. Futterman combines the story of Charlotte's attempt to find true love, with a collection of eccentric and artful photographs of chocolate. From the first page, we know we are in for an unforgettable experience. Though it looks like an elegant gift book, its presentation disguises a haunting novella. With humor, compassion and bravery, Futterman reveals much about love, yearning and all kinds of human hunger. Every woman--and every man who truly cares about women--should read this book.— San Francisco Chronicle
Jami Edwards
Enid Futterman's unique amalgamation of sensuality and chocolate is blended into a visually stunning book that is part novel, part photography book, part erotica, part travel essay, and part cookbook.— The Book [email protected]
Laurie Stone
With the compression of poetry and the candor of memoir, Futterman pens a modern fable in Bittersweet Journey, infusing her archetypal hungry woman with yearnings at once specific and resonant, uncloseting the secret of eating that is every girl-child's inner wagging finger. The passion is chocolate because it's dark, narcotizing, melting, and sticky.— Village Voice
Maureen M. Carmen
The subtitle of this charming book says it all. It is the story of a woman's search for the perfect truffle, and the perfect man, a dual quest that is not a trifle. Charlotte begins with candy kisses in the Brooklyn of her childhood and proceeds through her teens and young adulthood seeking the most incredible chocolate in London, Paris, and Brussels, while simultaneously finding new ways to both break and mend her heart. A delightful journey.— Philadelphia Inquirer