A Certain Hunger
Food critic Dorothy Daniels loves what she does. Discerning, meticulous, and very, very smart, Dorothy’s clear mastery of the culinary arts make it likely that she could, on any given night, whip up a more inspired dish than any one of the chefs she writes about. Dorothy loves sex as much as she loves food, and while she has struggled to find a long-term partner that can keep up with her, she makes the best of her single life, frequently traveling from Manhattan to Italy for a taste of both. But there is something within Dorothy that’s different from everyone else, and having suppressed it long enough, she starts to embrace what makes Dorothy uniquely, terrifyingly herself. Recounting her life from a seemingly idyllic farm-to-table childhood, the heights of her career, to the moment she plunges an ice pick into a man's neck on Fire Island, Dorothy Daniels show us what happens when a woman finally embraces her superiority.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about A Certain Hunger
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Dorothy Daniels is a Manhattan food critic with sex, taste, and a hobby she has spent decades suppressing. She tells you about her farm-to-table childhood and the man she killed with an ice pick, in that order.
Yes. A Certain Hunger is a literary horror and dark satire about a food critic who eats her former lovers. Chelsea G. Summers's debut novel is in the tradition of feminist body horror and is regularly compared to American Psycho.
A Certain Hunger contains graphic descriptions of cannibalism, sexual content, and violence. The tone is darkly comic but the content is explicit. It is intended for adult horror readers.
A Certain Hunger was written by Chelsea G. Summers, published in 2020 by The Unnamed Press.
A Certain Hunger is 254 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, A Certain Hunger takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
A Certain Hunger is a standalone novel by Chelsea G. Summers, not part of a series.
A Certain Hunger is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.