DEBORAH CROMBIE: Last week was a rough week. First Kate Spade, then Anthony Bourdain, gone. Both deaths were terribly, terribly sad, but I felt Tony Bourdain's with a profound sense of loss.
Much has been written about him in the last week, by people who knew him personally, which I, alas, did not. But here's the thing.
I've spent the last year and a half writing a book in which two of the main characters are chefs, and my fascination with these obsessive people in the kitchen goes back eighteen years to August of 2000, when a little known New York chef named Anthony Bourdain published a book called KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL.
Of course I was interested in food and cooking, but I had no idea what went on in restaurant kitchens, or what it took to be a chef--much less a good chef. Tony was smart and funny and articulate and sometimes brutal. He opened up a whole world to me, the professional kitchen with its sometimes unsavory underbelly, and with its denizens, the cooks, driven by necessity or passion.
Passion was the thing with Tony. He cared about life, and food, and especially about people. He went on to illuminate much more than a cook's life for us. He gave us other countries, other cultures, as well as the multitude of differences within our own country, and he celebrated those differences.
And, because we are writers, and crime writers, I have to add that Tony Bourdain was not only a great storyteller, he was a terrific writer--he could have made his reputation on his crime novels alone. A Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo, his crime novels set in the New York restaurant world, were published before Kitchen Confidential, The Bobby Gold Stories shortly after. He loved Dashiell Hammett and Elmore Leonard. His prose sparkled, his dialogue was on the money, his characters jumped off the page. But life, and the celebrity that came with Kitchen Confidential, took him in other directions.
But if we lost crime novels that might have been, we gained a unique view of the world with his television work, A Cook's Tour, No Reservations, and Parts Unknown. Through it all he made connections, with people, with food, and with life.
Anthony Bourdain was a rebel, a truth-teller, an explorer, an opener of doors, and we are all the poorer for his passing.
It’s heartbreakingly sad when people can find no escape from their despair . . . we have lost something irreplaceable with their passing.
ReplyDeleteJoan, you said it eloquently, thank you. Heartbreakingly sad, exactly.
ReplyDeleteSuicide is such a complicated decision, leaving so many questions for those of us left behind. My mother and my nephew were changed forever when my brother chose to end his own life, with no explanation to anyone. It's agonizing to wonder if any of us could have helped him, if he'd only reached out to us. Not one of us, including his own wife, knew he was troubled to such an extent. That haunts me.
Very sorry for your family's loss Karen.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this essay, Debs, he was bursting with talent and success and it's so totally hard to understand from the outside. I posted this on Facebook last week, so feel free to skip if you've read it before:
Putting my psychologist hat for a moment...we are hearing an awful lot about suicide these days, including the tragic deaths of celebrities Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. For folks who haven't felt seriously depressed or desperate, it may be hard to fathom thinking about killing yourself--and not considering the emotional destruction such an act leaves behind. But when folks feel that hopeless, suicide may seem like the only option. So what can we do to help?
Pay attention for signs of depression and suicide, including talk about feeling hopeless, changes in appetite or sleep habits, withdrawal and loss of interest in school, work, hobbies, friends, giving things away, preoccupation with death and dying...
I taught this to my peer counselors at Yale: Don't be afraid to ask directly: Are you feeling suicidal or thinking about harming yourself? If the answer is yes or maybe, get help! Call a family doctor for a referral or the suicide prevention hotline 800-273-8255
Thank you, Roberta.
DeleteIt was 14 years ago in February. One year to the day later, my beloved grandson was born, weighing exactly what my brother weighed when he was born in 1956.
Thank you, Lucy/Roberta, for putting on your therapist cap. It seems we spend way more time grieving for someone who chooses suicide than we do paying attention to that potential.
DeleteI lost a friendship in the past few years because I insisted she see her doctor and report a deep depression. She did, and she got help, and she admitted that she was suicidal, but our friendship ended. Period. It's ok. It was worth it.
Another friend posted a suicide threat online in a private news group that we've been members of for 25 years. When she didn't answer her phone, I called the police, read them the note, and they went to the house. ( She lives in another state.) She answered the door, was ok, and then called and tore a chunk out of me. We lost contact for a while but are back on speaking terms.
The reason I'm saying all this is that one can't expect thanks for acting on a perceived threat. But that shouldn't make any difference. Better safe than sorry and all that. If you see the signs, do something.
Oh, Ann. I'm sorry that happened to you. It's too bad your friends did not understand the love from you.
DeleteIn my brother's case, he was living hundreds of miles away, and had cut us all off for a couple of years. He wouldn't have anything to do with his son, even. None of us knew he was struggling, not even his family in Arkansas.
I think in his case it was a male thing, trying to be stalwart and strong, even with enormous pain. He was definitely a macho man, and I guess he just couldn't take keeping up the pretense any more. Also, like Bourdain, he had issues with alcohol. A counselor friend said my brother's recent sobriety probably exposed him to whatever his self-medication with drinking had kept at bay.
Oh, Ann, sorry that happened to you. But as you say, it was worth it. And, Karen, so sorry about your brother.
DeleteI do wonder what was going on with Tony Bourdain. In his last photos he was terribly thin, almost emaciated. Something was obviously wrong...
Thank you, Roberta, for posting this here. My first thought with both Kate Spade and Tony Bourdain, was, "How could they do this to their children?" But I know they both loved their daughters very much. Their pain must have been unfathomable.
DeleteAnn, you've been a brave friend--kudos on that. Karen, that makes total sense to me what the counselor friend said. Alcohol and drugs so often are used to mask pain, and then when the mask is lifted, the mess is right there...
DeleteAnn, you've been a brave friend--kudos on that. Karen, that makes total sense to me what the counselor friend said. Alcohol and drugs so often are used to mask pain, and then when the mask is lifted, the mess is right there...
DeleteI keep thinking and thinking and thinking about what he could’ve been feeling. And I know we can’t truly understand. Kate Spade, too, who seemed to have everything. It makes us discuss it, I guess, when famous people take their own lives. But… It happens so often,times that we never hear of. And it is so so very sad
ReplyDeleteYou get on with life, doing the things that need to be done, until one day you can't. And that's the scary thing. All that psychic pain and no one will know how bad you are hurting--because sometimes there just aren't those clues. When the term 'mental health' goes away because it is simply as common and ordinary a subject as 'health'--no longer stigmatized--and health care is available and affordable for all of us--then maybe rates of suicide will decrease. In the meantime, we all suffer at the losses to humanity--I didn't even know that Tony Bourdain wrote fiction :-(
ReplyDeleteWell said, Flora. We still act as if mental health means something squishy and vaguely suspicious, or less dangerous than physical illness. There are ambulatory care centers everywhere now and the pharmacist can give you your flu shot, but mental health treatment is much harder for many people to access. Maybe we need to start treating depression like influenza: widespread, treatable, but potentially fatal.
DeleteI've never read Kitchen Confidential, and I didn't even know he'd written crime novels until people started mentioning them after he died. Now I want to, very much. Such a loss.
ReplyDeleteI would start with Kitchen Confidential. It's brilliant.
DeleteAnthony Bourdain was a wonderful storyteller and writer, but the cornerstone of those talents was that he was a wonderful listener. It's not the first quality that comes to mind when you think of him--opinionated and bold are at the top of the list--but I think that listening was the key to his talents. He went into people's homes and their lives and listened to what they had to say without judgment, and they rewarded him by telling them what their lives were really like. He also accepted the gift of their food, no matter how off-putting, which added a layer of trust to the encounter. I think he embodied the best characteristics of an American tourist and a writer: curious, gracious, and generous. He will be missed.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Ingrid, that Bourdain was a great listener. I think perhaps he suffered from a surfeit of empathy--which can be as much curse as blessing.
DeleteYou're right, Debs. Perhaps he took in too much of everyone else's stories and didn't have a place to put them. "No Boundaries" applied to his heart as much as his travels, unfortunately.
DeleteLike Edith, I've never read Kitchen Confidential and I had no idea Bourdain wrote crime novels. Wow.
ReplyDeleteMary/Liz
I read Kitchen Confidential many years ago; it was recommended to me by a friend who owned a restaurant with her husband. She had said it was "eye-opening". I'll have to see about some of his other books. Like everyone else, I just have no words, no explanations for why people think this is their only choice.
ReplyDeleteParts Unknown was a Sunday night stop down in my house. We all loved it. I believe you can see past episodes on Netflix right now. I can remember at least two episodes where Anthony Bourdain included eating and visits with mystery writers. One in Mississippi with a handful of writers including Ace Atkins and the great Tom Franklin and the other a visit to the Missouri Ozarks where he fished, etc with Daniel Woodrell where...unfortunate events occurred. Crazy!
ReplyDeleteBourdain was just greatness and will be extremely missed in my house. I think we've talked about him everyday since he left. So very sad.
Yes, we have, too, Nancy. The tributes and notes left outside his old Les Halles restaurant in New York are just heartbreaking. He touched so many people's lives.
Deletehttps://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/anthony-bourdain-les-halles_us_5b1eb080e4b0bbb7a0e00ebd
Parts Unknown was scheduled to go off Netflicks on June 16th, but Netflix has apparently renegotiated its license agreement with CNN and now says the episodes will run indefinitely. Both No Reservations and Parts Unknown are also available to stream from Amazon and iTunes.
ReplyDeleteLast week was brutal. I don’t watch much TV but I watched Tony, especially when Hub and I were starting out and times were tough and we wanted adventures we couldn’t take ourselves. I will miss his compassion, his wit, and his brilliance. Fabulous post, Debs. Thanks for giving us a space to remember the genius that was Bourdain.
ReplyDeleteIf you have never read Bourdain, here is the New Yorker piece that got him the book contract for Kitchen Confidential.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/04/19/dont-eat-before-reading-this
I have taken his advice to heart ever since!
Thanks for posting this, Debs - he's a big loss, as is Kate Spade. Such talented people who, seem to us mere mortals, to have everything.
ReplyDeleteI had a dear friend commit suicide 3 years ago. I wish I'd been as alert as Ann - I'd happily have forfeited our friendship if it would have made difference.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I hear about a suicide, whether the person is a celebrity or someone closer to home, I am deeply saddened. My youngest sister was suicidal on and off for most of her life. As family, we did everything we knew how to do-at the time- to encourage her to get help. There were times when she stopped speaking to family members over it. When our mom died, my sister, who had been living with her, had a major breakdown, and was on the verge of suicide. (Also, she wanted to kill me, which I can laugh at now.) She was hospitalized for a few days. An appointment was made for her to see someone at the local mental health clinic. For the next few years she sort of "dabbled" in seeing a therapist. She refused medication. More time passed. The MS she had been diagnosed with a few years earlier took a downward swing. Our family and her therapist convinced her that seeing a therapist and taking medication for her depression would help her to handle the stress of having MS. That's when the turning point came. I believe she actually forgot that she had ever been suicidal. She continued to be irrational, but could sometimes be made to understand that she was being irrational. Her physical disability got worse and worse, and finally she went into a nursing home. Over the next few years she suffered many complications from the MS. Two and a half years ago she was very ill and was facing major surgery. One of our aunts kept in touch with me weekly. (She wouldn't let me call her; she never remembered that I had free long distance calling!) about her. The Tuesday before Labor Day three years ago she was very upset when I told her that we still didn't have a surgery date, but should know by the end of the week. She ordered me to call her on Saturday, and said if she didn't hear from me by 10:30 on Saturday, she would call me. I called her at 10that Saturday, and there was no answer. Her answering machine never picked up. I called on and off on Saturday, Sunday, Labor Day, and there was no answer. Because it was a holiday weekend I thought she might be with friends. Before I went to work that Tuesday, I wrote myself a note to call her as soon as I got home. Just as I returned home, a cousin (another of her nieces) called to tell me that one of our cousins found her dead the day before, and that it was probably suicide. It was later confirmed, but not before the poor cousin who found her was treated like a possible murder suspect. I never, ever expected her to kill herself. She was outspoken and opinionated, and you always knew where you stood with her, but I never in a million years would have expected her to commit suicide, even after spending years in family support groups for families of people with mental illness. She was very kind to my sister, sent her a few dollars every month to use at the nursing home vending machines. Twice a year, for my sister's birthday and Christmas, she sent me a check for one hundred dollars, and told me to buy my sister "whatever she wants, NOT what she needs!" I never did tell my sister, who died a little over a year later, how our aunt died. I just told her it was "sudden", and related to "a medical condition that she was ignoring". She never questioned it.
ReplyDeleteMy heart goes out to the families and friends of the people who are left behind.
DebRo
Oh, Deb, that is so sad. Thanks for sharing with us. One of my first cousins committed suicide a few years ago. There seems to be someone in almost everyone's family. Maybe it is good that we are talking about it.
Deleteoh DebRo, what a terrible saga. Your family truly suffered along with your sister, and this must have been a horrible shock. So sorry!
DeleteHere's a great piece on Bourdain from last Friday's New Yorker.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/anthony-bourdain-and-the-power-of-telling-the-truth
And here we are a small group of correspondents and yet suicide has impacted on 4 of us (I lost a cousin.) Possibly others on this very page did not share their specific story. The studies show that suicide has increased in our population by 24 % from 1999 to 2014. Maybe this is the real epidemic our Health Care System should earmark for preventive funding.
ReplyDeleteBourdain was more than a story teller, he was a social advocate. Let his death not be the death of his causes and dreams.
Thank you for this. I hear of people, famous and not that pass by their own hand and yes it is tragic, it is sad, but it did not make the impact that Bourdain's passing has made on me. I remember when the singer of INXS died the same way. I was shaken, but still not like this. Bourdain came into my home, he brought other countries, cultures, food, humor, sarcasm, wit and a lust for life into my room. I am lucky to say I have never been faced with a suicidal thought (for one the guilt would be too much for me). I may never understand what makes someone get to that point and again I am thankful for that. Seeing someone who seemed to be so content with their life, doing what they love, that is just hard to swallow. It shakes my perception of who is at risk for suicide. I have been posting info on my page because I now know it could happen to anyone. Thank you for a well written blog, that really speaks to me.
ReplyDeleteI know, Kay. To me, it really felt like losing a friend.
DeleteThere are truly people that grace this world who are larger than life, and Anthony Bourdain was one of those people. And, he belonged to the world, bringing it to us with seemingly effortless ease, but, of course, it wasn't effortless, and he worked himself to exhaustion. Then, beyond the television shows and traveling, he was, as Debs mentioned, a writer, a talented one. After his death, I tried to read articles that brought me information about his work other than food, and I came across a piece talking about how he came to write for the TV show Treme, the show set in post-Katrina New Orleans. He wrote the chef's (Janette) story line and turned it into a focus point the creators of the show hadn't originally considered. So multi-talented. His contribution to the world will be missed greatly. Depression is a wily disease and knows just where to hit us to break us.
ReplyDeleteKathy, I didn't know that about Treme. We started the series but got distracted. Now, I'm going to be back and finish it.
DeleteI, too, missed some of it and want to go back and pick it up.
DeleteDebs, here's a quick link to the episodes he wrote for Treme. http://treme.wikia.com/wiki/Anthony_Bourdain
DeleteThanks, Kathy. Hopefully I will manage to finish Season 1 so that Season 2 will make sense!
DeleteI just had lunch with friends today. One was talking about her sister having a hard time after losing her husband. Another woman said she could join the Dead Husbands' Club that she and a few of her friends joked about after their husbands died. The woman said she felt suicidal after her husband's passing as the sister had right after her husband died. I felt that way when my mother and aunt died about 10 years ago. I've been talking almost every Saturday to a lady who lost her husband a week after my mother died. Donna's sister is seeing a counselor. I think talking to someone helps.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding post and commentary dealing with a very tough, very real issue. Thank you, Deb, and all the commentators!
ReplyDelete