![]() He has a smart, literate, sly voice on the page. At a time when writers really, really want us to like them, and it’s all a bit gross, Buford doesn’t try very hard. ![]() Buford’s story may have some readers skating along the line that separates envy from something else. But the lack of even vague disclosure, in a book that takes an interest in social class in Lyon, leaves an odd crater. I don’t demand that a writer tell me where his or her seemingly endless supply of scratch comes from. They order dear bottles of wine in restaurants and consume extortionate menus and take high-priced classes and send their children, when they finally return to New York, to an elite private school. Buford and Green abandon their jobs and apparently their incomes and rent an apartment in Lyon that has six marble fireplaces. this book has a blind spot as regards money. Watching Buford choose a topic for scrutiny is like watching an enormous bodybuilder single out one muscle, on the mountain range of his or her arms, for a laser-focused burn. This is a big book that, like an army, moves entire divisions independent of one another. When Buford picks up a subject - be it bread or language or culinary history or Italian versus French food or the nature of Lyon - that subject is simmered until every tendon has softened. As with good cookery, no shortcuts are taken in Dirt. ![]() It’s as if Johnny Cash followed up 'Get Rhythm,' as a jukebox single, with 'Hurt.'. ![]()
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