Delicious Foods

Delicious Foods by James Hannaham, 371 pages.

Eddie has lost his hands sometime before or during his escape from Delicious Foods. Whatever the story of this double amputation is, Eddie is not anxious to share. He and his mom, Darlene have been having rough times since her husband was killed. Nat was murdered and mutilated in a brutal racist attack in

So, maybe the coolest book to have at least part of the story narrated by crack cocaine. Crack is named “Scotty” here (maybe everywhere, I don’t know), he knows all the workers at Delicious Foods, dances with them inside their heads. He's sympathetic to their plight, and is always on the lookout for new friends. The author, who reads the audio, does a great job with the two voices, and his non-judgemental tone is eerily chilling in a couple of scenes where everything depends on brave acts and quick decisions by well-meaning characters and where those efforts are hampered by the several actors agreeing that now would be a really good time for a hit from the pipe, just to calm their nerves. Eddie is a good solid, strong character, but by the end his story is overwhelmed and overshadowed by the stories of his parents particularly Darlene, and at times it’s Scotty who tells the story best. 

A strange story, but great.