Deer Hunting in Paris

Reviews / Votes

Winner of the 2014 Lowell Thomas Award for Best Travel Book In honoring Paula Young Lee's work, the judges said: "Eudora Welty, who believes all good writing must have it, speaks of the sound of a voice. And what a voice here! Resonant with images and descriptions, detailed observation and reporting, it soars -- from a coot recipe to church suppers. Paula Young Lee saw a lot of the latter because her father, who came to this country from Korea with her mother after the war, served as a Methodist minister in various small town churches in Maine. Growing up there instilled in her a love of hunting, a match for her interest in cooking." "Paula Young Lee has the best 'Food & Hunting' book of the season: Deer Hunting in Paris." -- Stephen Bodio "Once I starting flipping through its pages I found myself reading it cover to cover...[Lee] writes well and tells a good story." -- Marion Nestle, author of Eat, Drink, Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics, 2013 "Pour yourself a cup of tea, curl up on the couch, and open up Paula Young Lee's latest book, Deer Hunting in Paris: A Memoir of God, Guns, and Game Meat. And be prepared to laugh out loud. Often." -- Marjorie Moss, contributor to HuntingLife "[Lee's] unsentimental take on family relationships, rural and city cultures, red and blue Americas, and, ultimately, death, human and animal alike -- [is] a gratifying relief from conventional thought. Deer hunting in Paris? I'd follow Lee anywhere." -- Alison Pearlman, author of Smart Casual: The Transformation of Gourmet Restaurant Style in America, 2013 "Paula Young Lee's memoir, Deer Hunting in Paris, bursts with wit, recipes, and unexpected juxtapositions. I grew up Korean American in Alabama, but Paula grew up Korean American in Maine, which is even stranger. I did not go on to explore Paris and moose hunting like Paula did, but her memoir, which is unexpectedly moving, makes me wish I had. A truly extraordinary life and a truly unique voice. More than any other book I know, Deer Hunting in Paris explores the tendons and gristle of life." -- Michael Chwe, author of Jane Austen, Game Theorist "From the rugged backwoods of Maine to the streets of Paris, Paula Young Lee takes you on an unexpected journey. Through deep insight, arresting imagery, and deft turns of phrase, she reveals the meat, blood, and bone of our hungers, dark and true." -- Tara Austen Weaver, author of The Butcher & The Vegetarian "Not many narratives have you laughing, wincing, and weeping at the same time. Deer Hunting in Paris is pure prose genius. Smart and smart-alecky, a delight on every page." -- Gary Buslik, author of A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean and Akhmed and the Atomic Matzo Balls "Paula Young Lee is M.F.K. Fisher with a gun, Julia Child prepping roadkill." -- Marcy Gordon, editor, Leave the Lipstick, Take the Iguana "Deer Hunting in Paris is a story of hunger and faith, and faith in hunger. But there's more to it than that: a frenetic electricity, a stumbling toward an illusion of arrival that's hard to put a finger on. Paula Young Lee's memoir is the stuff of sumptuous and bloodthirsty parable, a story at once new and strange, and yet engrained, guiding us with searing wit through the chambers of our lives. In her commentary on contemporary culture, her catalogue of references that shift from ancient to pop in the blink of an eye, this is a memoir that proves and interrogates the wild interconnectedness of things, especially those that may at first seem glaringly dissimilar. Lee moves us from Maine to France and back again, whirls us among Jesus and Kafka, IKEA and The Big Buck Club, love, shotguns, longing, and death. 'The dying,' she tells us, 'have epiphaniesand enemas.' Rarely has such a spectrum of quirky meditations been so funny, and so true. The result is a tale that makes you laugh, scratch your head, rock your heart back from the breaking, and ultimately, exhale, exhilarated, having just learned that the weirdest arenas in our lives are often the most beautiful." -- Matthew Gavin Frank, author of Preparing the Ghost, Pot Farm, and Barolo "I have a new favorite writer--I love this book. Like Spalding Gray before her, Paula Young Lee has written an endearingly neurotic monologue full of cleaver-sharp, side-splitting storytelling. There are books (think Bill Bryson, J. Maarten Troost, Tahir Shah) that contain an ultimate moment that for years I read aloud to friends, but Deer Hunting in Paris is an entire book of such moments. I phoned friends and family and stopped strangers to read aloud some of Paula's moments: her nose nestled between her boyfriend's butt cheeks as they train for the wife-carrying competition, her childhood dream that Turkish delight is 100% giblets, trying on a camouflage bikini (while ammo shopping) that turns her into both a wallflower and a butterball, a wedding day pig roast with a guy nicknamed Smeg, short for smegma. What I wasn't expecting in this witty romp was a wisdom and way of looking at life and death that would make this the most personally profound book I've ever read. My life-long all-consuming terror of death was bizarrely put out of its misery with Lee's rational portrait of the inevitable for all of us creatures as she deftly handles flesh for feasting." -- Kirsten Koza, author of Lost in Moscow: A Brat in the USSR "Paula Young Lee takes us on an intriguing whirl through a Paris most of us have never seen--a Paris of Republicans, rifle-toting New Englanders, and riotous tales of hunting. Your stomach will ache from laughter and hunger at the same time." -- David Farley, author of An Irreverent Curiosity Book of the Week, 22 Nov. 2013, AnyNewBooks On Paula Young Lee's writing: "Intelligent without snobbery, poignant without sappiness, and hilarious without end...[it will] never get out of your head." -- Ron Cooper, author of critically acclaimed novels, Hume's Fork and Purple Jesus "Lee's characters are captivating, her prose crystalline, her storytelling worth your precious time." -- Garrison Somers, Editor-in-Chief, The Blotter Magazine