Cravings CL

In this interesting, bittersweet account of her growing-up years during the 1960s in a Jewish family in Dayton, Ohio, Felman (Hot Chicken Wings), a performance artist who teaches women's studies at Brandeis, recalls a childhood marked by sibling rivalry. With her two older sisters, she competed for their mother's attention in a battle that continued after her death, when all three fought over who would inherit her jewelry, furniture and recipes. Their father, in an ironic twist, gave his wife's detailed meal plans to Judy, the anorexic-bulimic sister whose teenaged shoplifting, according to the author, sundered her family. Felman, who as a 14-year-old began hyperventilating to get parental attention, provides accounts of the delicious kosher dishes her mother cooked that she now craves. She also humorously describes the family vacations in Miami and once, off-season, to Haiti. Although Felman was for many years strongly influenced by her parents' rigid religious beliefs, she eventually broke away and acknowledged her lesbian identity. Author tour. (Sept.)