In recent years, I’ve fallen out of reading dystopian and environmentalist science fiction—so I thought, why not get back into it? When I read the synopsis for Land of Milk and Honey, I was fascinated by the idea of what survival might look like in a dying, famished world, and C Pam Zhang did not fail to deliver!
C Pam Zhang is the bestselling author of How Mush of These Hills is Gold, which won multiple literary credentials including the Academy of the Arts and Letters Rosenthal Award and the Asian/Pacific Award for Literature. Zhang has been published in places like Best American Short Stories and The New Yorker. Her latest work, Land of Milk and Honey, was a New York Times notable book of the year and a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, as well as longlisted for many other awards.
About the Book
Land of Milk and Honey takes place during a time of smog and worldwide famine. It is about an (unnamed) chef from LA, who ends up stuck in Europe after America’s borders close. Desperate for a taste of her old passion, she applies for a job on a mountain filled with super-rich residents. On the mountain, there is no smog, and food is plentiful because of underground hidden labs and careful bioengineering.
It is here that the chef meets Aida, the beautiful, ambitious daughter of the chef’s employer. Aida is brilliant, but headstrong, and the chef is utterly fascinated by her. Although the two face tensions, they eventually become lovers, and their relationship faces ups and downs among the ethical qualms of the mountain vs. the world beyond: privilege vs. the famished, progress vs. welfare, delicacies vs. blandness.
And the chef’s job comes with something even more troubling: as it turns out, her employer’s Korean wife left years ago under murky circumstances, and now he requires another Asian woman to fill the role. Under her employer’s direction, the chef therefore adopts a new identity, one she performs with careful elegance: Eun-Young, whose sole goal is to please potential investors at dinners so that they will continue to fund the project on the mountain.
Review of the Book
I’ll be honest, it took me a while to truly appreciate this book. The style is very literary, and it was difficult for me to understand what was going on and to really be invested in the story. But as I continued, I became hooked. I was desperate to know what would happen next on the mountain and what would happen to Aida’s and the chef’s relationship. By the end—which came full circle to the prologue—I was nearly crying. I could’ve believe how things turned out, and it left me with a lot to think about.
I do think the ethical debates truly make this book worth reading. It takes place on the mountain, so naturally the reader feels they should side with the chef and her allies. But then a new question is posed: are these three—the chef, Aida, her employer—truly ever a “family”? Are they even allies? Or was it all just a manipulative game? Then there is the question of the labs. It appears that progress is being made under Aida’s direction, but at some points her actions may appear harsh or inhumane. The reader is left wondering what it truly means to respect life in the world. And of course, the chef’s employer poses a whole new bank of ethical problems, considering the fact that he’s essentially replacing his wife and that his expectations of the chef are strict and sometimes cruel. All of this to continue funding his project on the mountain and the innovations it’s making. Even beyond this, there are troubles outside the mountain, including an arson attempt and disdain from outsiders when Aida and the chef briefly leave. The reader is thus in a strange position, with the story being told from the chef’s perspective on the mountain and the rest of the smog-filled world lingering in the background.
I also want to mention that the writing style of the book is so elegant. Like I said before, it’s quite literary. Although this may be dense or overwhelming at times, the more the reader gets into the story, the more comprehendible the writing becomes and the more the metaphors resonate. So much of this story centers around food, as does the style, and in this way it adds more layers to the book overall.
I would definitely recommend this book if you’re looking to get into some dystopian/utopian or environmentalist fiction. It will leave you starved with questions, full of answers, and ultimately craving just one more taste of C Pam Zhang’s delectable writing.
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