Cake or Death: The excruciating choices of everyday life, by Heather Mallick. Knopf (2007).

Opinionated women, who tell it like it is, are rarely loved, except by other opinionated women. Heather Mallick’s latest, Cake or Death, provides a buffet of her strong views on a range of matters both personal and political. And although I would be considered more a contemporary of Mallick’s stepdaughter, nonetheless this is a book to be read by opinionated women of all ages.

This book gives us an intimate view inside the head of a prominent progressive Canadian journalist. It’s interesting, and somewhat atypical, precisely because it deals primarily with the kind of everyday trials and tribulations that writers of non-fiction rarely explore.

For instance, one chapter, ‘Born Ugly: In which we humans dodge a painful truth,’ catalogues the author’s horror at finding an article by one of her favourite feature writers in which the journalist trumpets her conversion to the joys of Botox. With the shelves full of “women’s magazines,” Mallick laments that this genre has been reduced to beauty self-obsession and worse. There is very little column space devoted to the observations of someone like Mallick.

The Globe and Mail drove home this point when they parted company with Mallick some time ago; the author, however, hasn’t let that episode soften her barbs.

The chapter that has drawn the heaviest criticism from many reviewers is entitled ‘How you Americans annoy me: And how I wish you would just stop.’ She goes over the top to be sure, but she does preface her harshest remarks for the USA by saying that she’s using “Americans” to refer to the “awful ones,” mostly Republicans. With that disclaimer out of the way, she declares:

“Americans are dumb. There, I’ve said it. They’re nice people, many of them in the blue states, but they don’t read, their insularity practically turns them inside out, they dress like children and they are so literally-minded that even Americans can’t understand how their intelligent comedy survives...

Go to hell, America. I couldn’t have dreamed of a more awful place if I’d tried. I wish the stay-puffed marshmallow man would just sit on your country and squash you all into a seat cover."

These are, to say the least, the kind of thoughts few polite Canadians would allow themselves to put down in print. It’s jarring, and yet refreshing that Mallick lets herself go a little off the rails for effect. And even mild-mannered souls will get some satisfaction from her description of Rush Limbaugh as a “fat limp-penised druggie.”

Of course, Mallick lists her favourite Americans and has a follow up chapter on “why she loves America.” The reasons include one Bruce Springsteen, and that certainly resonates with this reviewer. We all know we are counting on those progressive allies who happen to have been ‘Born in the USA’ (or migrated to the USA due to neo-liberal globalization).

Cake or Death makes for a good summer read. Of course, it should be made clear that the reader’s political views will determine if they find its angrier morsels bitter or sweet.

Home Features David and Goliath Stop smirking, Bettman Books this week Essays & Reviews The Big Sellout Operation Filmmaker Salud!