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Serious Eats

Susan Orlean Seriously Wrote a Diet Book?

Posted by Nathalie Jordi, January 23, 2007

Susan Orlean, staff writer for the New Yorker and author of The Orchid Thief (which later became the movie Adaptation, starring Meryl Streep and Nicholas Cage), also wrote a little-known diet book under her married name, Susan Sistrom.

People don't seem to know what to make of it; was it written in jest, bad taste, or good sense? Is it ironic or funny or just despicable?

I've ordered a copy, because I like Susan Orlean too much to believe she could've written something as banal as a diet book without something more substantial in mind--cultural commentary, sarcasm...something. Petite Amanda Hesser, whose size raises eyebrows despite the fact that she can eat like a bear, sat in on a 'skinny dinner' at a steakhouse with Sistrom and girlfriends and sounds skeptical.

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