Life without a recipe : a memoir
(Book)

On one side, there is Grace: prize-winning author Diana Abu-Jaber{u2019}s tough, independent sugar-fiend of a German grandmother, wielding a suitcase full of holiday cookies. On the other, Bud: a flamboyant, spice-obsessed Arab father, full of passionate argument. The two could not agree on anything: not about food, work, or especially about what Diana should do with her life. Grace warned her away from children. Bud wanted her married above all{u2015}even if he had to provide the ring. Caught between cultures and lavished with contradictory "advice" from both sides of her family, Diana spent years learning how to ignore others{u2019} well-intentioned prescriptions. Hilarious, gorgeously written, poignant, and wise, Life Without a Recipe is Diana{u2019}s celebration of journeying without a map, of learning to ignore the script and improvise, of escaping family and making family on one{u2019}s own terms. As Diana discovers, however, building confidence in one{u2019}s own path sometimes takes a mistaken marriage or two{u2015}or in her case, three: to a longhaired boy-poet, to a dashing deconstructionist literary scholar, and finally to her steadfast, outdoors-loving Scott. It also takes a good deal of angst (was it possible to have a serious writing career and be a mother?) and, even when she knew what she wanted (the craziest thing, in one{u2019}s late forties: a baby!), the nerve to pursue it. Finally, fearlessly independent like the Grace she{u2019}s named after, Diana and Scott{u2019}s daughter Gracie will heal all the old battles with Bud and, like her writer-mom, learn to cook up a life without a recipe.