Delicacy: A memoir about cake and death

Product Information

It is after this, and the subsequent years of her father’s slow mental deterioration, that Wix is stricken not only by the “prison” of “anticipatory grief” but the sudden and unexpected death of her best friend “D”.

Then when she had a stand-in for a couple of episodes I was something like intrigued (too nosy/cold) or concerned (too earnest).I now have a healthier relationship with food, in that I allow myself to enjoy it for what it is, but her patterns of refusing food as a way of investing in a future self and bingeing as a punishment for a past self were familiar, as was her sense of not wanting to eat in front of other people for fear of being found disgusting or being judged for having an appetite and not being the feminine ideal of small and bird like. It’s probably why I like Wix so much as a performer, because I see so much of who I am reflected back at me. Katy Wix shares moments of trauma from her adolescence and adulthood and explains how cake has become associated in her mind with the awfulness of life.

Although she works in comedy, I found it refreshing that this memoir was in no way a nod to the other celebrities in her life. Wix’s accounts of these experiences have a matter-of-fact authority, in which she demonstrates the lifelong psychological consequences that can emerge when adults comment on children’s bodies.

the last segment was the saving grace for me, very insightful and finally helpful for anyone experiencing grief and depression. Cardiff's libraries appear to be under threat again, including the suggestion that hard copies of magazines will no longer be available. Many of these chapters are about her mother's final illness and surviving the grief when she died, such as "Chimney cake, or, The thoughts I have about cancer when I open my fridge door at night for a snack".