Holy Hunger: A Woman's Journey from Food Addiction to Spiritual Fulfillment

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Summary: A Triumph of Loving Honesty: Holy Hunger by M. Bullitt-Jonas
Review: A searing reflection on growing up in a family of passionate, loving and flawed human beings, Holy Hunger is the product of a decades-long struggle by a person of courage and imagination to discover and honor her true nature.

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas writes from the point of view of someone who is on the other side of years of suffering, telling a story of addiction, loss and renewal from a very unusual point of view. This former literary scholar turned minister combines a clear-eyed honesty about herself, her family and the lives they lead with a depth of compassion for her subjects that I have rarely encountered. Holy Hunger weaves together suffering, anger, insight and forgiveness in an engaging and moving way.

It has always seemed to me an enormous occupational hazard of the novelist or autobiographer that one's duty to the craft collides with, and often trumps, one's loyalty to and respect for the feelings and memory of family and loved ones. If ever a book had the potential to support this thesis, Holy Hunger would have seemed to be it, as addictions and psychological wounds drive painful and self-destructive behaviors in two generations of a complex, high-achieving, and often very unhappy family. Instead, what one gets from Ms. Bullitt-Jonas is a blend of intellectual candor and emotional decency which one suspects is the result of sterling character, deep love, and great effort. This is a wise, strong, loving storyteller at work, and both she and her other subjects are in good hands.

The question of why, how and whether people will come back from the precipice of self-destructive behaviors to fashion lives of meaning and joy is a topic of common importance to many, perhaps most of us. In Bullitt-Jonas's life, and in this book, the story is about those who make it and those who do not. This is the real stuff.

There is a density to this book not reflected in the number of its pages, but despite its fullness, it left me wanting to know and hear more. At its end, I wished I knew even more about the nature of Bullitt-Jonas's spiritual journey, then and now. I wanted to hear her reflect and dig even more deeply into the nature of desire, as a spiritual longing, a physical condition, and a daily human emotion, particularly in this period of her life, at her strongest and most powerful. I suspect this is true for others of her readers. This is a great problem to have -- an embarrassment of intellectual and narrative riches -- and one I feel sure she will address in her future work. So we'll just have to wait for the next book, with pleasurable anticipation.

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Summary: A Thoughtful Reflection on Childhood and Food
Review: Holy Hunger struck a deep chord in me, not because I share Bullitt-Jonas' family history or her obsession with food but because in it Bullitt-Jonas insightfully reflects on her primordial family relationships. The book is about the early life of a woman with an eating disorder, but it is also about the pain of growing up and discovering the inadequacies and absences of parents, even loving and smart ones. Bullitt-Jonas' story is one of sadness and loss. At the same time, her quest leads her to redemption, joy, and victory.

I found the book utterly captivating and I highly recommend it.

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Summary: Bravely and beautifully told.
Review: I don't have much to add to the positive reviews below, but I do want to underscore the quality of the writing, as well as the insight offered in this book. This is a narrative, rather than a 'how-to,' where the author really opens herself up, using her journey as a model for the journey so many of us must take. She is a wonderful example, expressing her life through her excellent writing.

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Summary: Holy Hunger Goes to the Heart
Review: I have just finished using this Spring Rev. Margaret Bullitt Jonas' book for two courses at Boston College, one for pastoral ministry and counseling psychology graduate students on "Spirituality and Psychotherapy" , the second for advanced undergraduates on "Sexuality and the Spiritual Life". In my experience such students are tough- minded reviewers who easily pick up on cant, self-promotion and any note of emotional falsity. Uniformly they found this book an honest, intricate and nuanced presentation of life in one family - no more or less "dysfunctional" than many of them found their own. Ideological reactions to the text that grumpily and simplistically assign it to a genre of "victimology" simply have not read it as closely as these students who were awake to the genuine if complicated appreciation the author has for both of her parents - fully drawn individuals who the author sees with a completeness and complexity we all could learn from. It is a text I will continue to use professionally, and value personally.

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Summary: An absolute GEM!
Review: I was very disappointed in this book. Although there were moments of insight offered by this author, for the most part I found myself growing impatient with the simplistic faith perspective that ran throughout. There are many more interesting memoirs to read on disordered eating -- ones that look at the problem from the spiritual side. I am thinking in particular of anything written by Geneen Roth. Then too, there is a whinney undertone to this book that is a little off putting as well. Not that the book is steeped in this, but every so often I felt my eyes roll.

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Summary: Bravely and beautifully told.
Review: It angers me that a couple of smug and snippy reviewers may have prevented this beautiful story from getting to all the people it could help. In my own twelve-step struggle, Margaret Bullitt-Jonas has become a strong companion on the uphill climb.

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Summary: Standing up for Margaret...
Review: The review by so-called Librarina which appeared just after mine, makes me sad that some feel the need to tear down writers who are trying to communicate their deepest feelings.

I didn't find Ms. Bullitt-Jonas's story self-absorbed. However, a memoir about recovery will be a lot about the person who is writing it. Why would one expect any less from such a book? I, for one, was fascinated by this woman's inner journey, because I identified with so much of it.

Librarina must have had some big buttons pushed when reading this. It sounds like she - or he? - (too cowardly to let us know, unlike Margaret, who revealed herself with admirable candor) may be a struggling addicted person. Indeed, the reference in the slightly off-key referral to AA shows that this person is on the fringes of recovery. May I recommend that Librarina take a look at the reason she (or he) felt compelled to read the book all the way through and admit that she (or he) needs the kind of help Margaret got, help that resulted in a deeply moving literary achievement?

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Summary: Important book!
Review: This book has a number of important strengths. The author courageously shared insights about her eating disorder and experiences in twelve-step programs. I admired the richness of the language she used and the images she invoked. And, most essentially, she made plain the connection between hunger for our culture's quick fixes and hunger for God. Yes, some of the incidents she recounted made me uncomfortable, made me want to put the book down and run for the nearest distraction. But that may have been the point! My only complaint was that sometimes I wanted to shout at her, "Margaret, stop telling me so much about your mother's life and tell me some more about yours!" or, "How could you value that selfish, vicious, controlling father above all others?"

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Summary: Holy Hunger: Life Giving Story Telling
Review: Through her memoir Margaret Bullitt-Jonas invites us to delve into our own stories and discover parts of life previously hidden, covered over, or locked away. It is a gift for those wanting to enter into life more deeply, but not one to be chosen by readers who refuse to be propelled into their own self-examination and self-discovery.

"Sometimes we have no access to our feelings, we can't get hold of our lives; we can only find ourselves as we read our way through the stories of another writer, another teller of a family tale" (p. 198) For Bullitt-Jones,the Russian revolutionary writer Alexander Herzen was the writer that propelled her further in her own self-discovery. For myself and other's like me who choose this self-discovery process for ourselves, Holy Hunger is a precious and grace-filled family tale that opens doors to create a space "Within which to discover and sort out my feelings, so that my own authentic self might arise at last and find a language in which to speak" (p.159).

I am thankful for the author's courageous choice to tell her own story of spiritual recovery. Her grace filled truth telling is refreshing. Her ability to tell the truth about her family without blaming is the product of twenty years of hard work in recovery from addiction. It is good news for all who've chosen the pain of truly living rather than succumb to the anesthization of addiction.

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Summary: Holy Hunger: A Review
Review: When first reading this book I couldn't help but wonder how the author managed to grow up in my house and I didn't notice her! Any Adult Child of an Alcoholic will find this book riveting and very personal. Her journey through her addiction to food, facing herself and growing is gripping. She avoids many of the "buzz words" that one often finds in self-help literature. While she uses many of the OA jargon, it's in the context of talking about OA. I admire the author's courage in opening up about her family, her problems and her road to recovery. A must read.