I think it’s pretty well known that Julia Child worked for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services during WWII, which is where she met Paul Child, so it is kind of wild to think there aren’t a whole host of books and movies about her time there because it must be fascinating.
I wish I could say this book by Diana R. Chambers lived up to my expectations, but I was sorely disappointed.
It’s not that there aren’t plenty of exciting things happening in this book because there are.
It’s just very badly written.
And the romance sucks.
To start with the “spy stuff,” I did enjoy watching Julia Child (Julia McWilliams, since this was in her bachelorette days) become an accidental spy.
In reality, she shuffled paperwork.
But that’s not interesting, so Chambers created an alternate reality in which Julia answered a phone she wasn’t supposed to answer and ended up handing a suitcase full of money to a “real” spy.
Turned out that money was being used to get Jews out of Germany.
Then Julia was sent to Asia to open an office for the OSS in Asia, which is true. She worked alongside British intelligence to do so, but spies hanging out with spies can only lead to deception and betrayal.
Most of this book takes place in Asia and is super condescending of Asians.
And, while of course we all know how much Julia loved food, I don’t believe for a second that someone who had only ever had bland pre-WWII American food would have taken to spicy Asian food the way Chambers wants us to believe Julia did. In her post-cookbook days, Julia was against using spices in food because they cover up the flavor of the meat and vegetables.
Julia also said in her autobiography that alcohol with lunch was a revelation when she and Paul arrived in France. Yet Chambers has Julia and her colleagues drinking like the cast of Mad Men.
Finally, there’s the romance between Julia and Paul. If Julia really was that flighty and inconsistent, it makes me have a lot less respect for her.
I think Chambers was trying to go for the hate-to-love-type romance, but doesn’t know how to do it right.
Instead, Julia hates Paul, then she loves him, then she hates him again. She complains about how hot-and-cold he is towards her, but she’s the one going from flirtatious to avoiding eye contact, back to flirtatious.
And of course she can’t just come out and have an honest conversation with him because that would make her a reasonable person I would actually like.
This book also waxes on about Julia’s “yearnings” and “longings” way too much. First of all, those words should never be used as much as they’re used in this book.
Second, as with Julia’s flightiness, it makes it seem like she’s a teenager with Big Feelings she doesn’t know what to do with.
In reality she was a woman of 30 who knew what she wanted and was busy trying to figure out how to get it. An author who understood that and treated her subject seriously would have written a much better book.