"So-so" books: Over Easy
15 July 2014
This year I've been trying to keep a spreadsheet of what I'm reading and why, but I'll admit it's a tough slog. I barely get the time to read, lately, so taking even a moment to type book information into Excel just isn't happening. As a result, as always, I'm still not sure how I find out about most of the books I read.
A case in point is Mimi Pond's graphic novel memoir Over Easy. It's about Pond's experiences working as a waitress in a 1970s California diner. I'm not sure why or how I heard about it, but as a former waitress myself, I will almost always get and read any book that I can find on the subject.
The book opens with Pond, an art student, finding herself in a diner, and deciding that she'd like to try working there. And so she does. And her stories (and drawings) about working with a wide variety of other wait- and kitchen staff are not completely uninteresting. But it never really gelled for me into any kind of narrative; Pond always seemed, perhaps true to her nature as an observer/artist, ever so slightly outside of the action.* I read this one barely a month ago and I remember hardly anything about it: therefore, "so-so."
If you're looking for a memoir on waitressing, you'd be much better served by Debra Ginsberg's wonderful Waiting: The True Confessions of a Waitress. Even Barbara Ehrenreich's overrated investigative work Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America contained a more lively section on working in a restaurant.
*Bonus points for Mimi Pond, though: an interview with her at The Bat Segundo Show is interesting (and you can see her artwork there, which, actually, I enjoyed).