Corked

November 16, 2009
In 2005, 20-something Canadian Borel and her 60-something French-born hotelier father set out by car on a days-long French wine “safari.” Borel, who works at the Canadian Broadcasting Company, desired a deeper connection to her father, but was also seeking escape from both the aftermath of a recent breakup and slightly older memories of a fatal car accident for which she bore responsibility. The trip's early stages were strained by travel sickness and father-daughter bickering, and as the abundantly detailed tour improved and progressed, the shadow of her father and his mortality fell ever sharper, if sometimes self-consciously. Borel's father emerges as a storytelling curmudgeon with a penchant for public humiliations who instinctively retreats into inappropriate humor; the narrator, meanwhile, comes across as emotional if not downright maudlin, and candid if not completely narcissistic. She lacks her father's knowledge of wine, a shortfall she covers with seemingly childish behavior. But then her wine-tasting experiences lead Borel to genuine breakthroughs, making her more confident and, in effect, bringing her relationship with her father to a breaking point. The narrative ends in a reconciliation that, like the whole book, is refreshingly unsentimental, grounded, perhaps to an extreme, in flashes of candor and humor.

December 1, 2009
A prickly young journalist reconnects with her father, a hot-tempered oenophile, on a wine trip through France.

Borel and her father, Philippe, have always had a rocky relationship. Philippe is a former chef and hotelier, and throughout Borel's youth, the family lived in hotels across the world. They finally settled in Quebec City, where Borel was involved in a fatal car accident. Though she was not at fault, the guilt of the other person's death still haunts her. Her father's response—or, in her opinion, lack thereof—plagues her too. Yet her love for her mysterious father, who shares her own bizarre brand of dark humor, transcends any lingering adolescent wounds, and the two embarked in a tiny car to meander through the French countryside. Throughout the trip, Borel grapples with two issues: her lack of wine"sense"—she could not even tell when a bottle was corked—and her father's looming mortality. Borel deftly captures the confusing emotions that surround parent-child relationships, especially the need for comfort and understanding that competes with a desire to rebel and establish one's own identity. Yet the author's gift for portraying that psychological whirlwind also causes the book to feel scattered at times. As she spirals through her existential crisis, the structure of the narrative flounders into semi-articulate emotional rants and only regains footing once she and her father are back on the road. Philippe's voice is so disarmingly charming and funny, however, that he assuages any sense of confusion on the part of the reader, and Borel, after these sidesteps. It is easy to understand the author's desire to bond with him.

A fast-paced read with nuggets of wine trivia that will appeal to anyone who has struggled to understand their parents.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2010
Canadian journalist Borel and her father explore the great vineyards of France. No mere wine-tasting jaunt, this journey represents what may be the last opportunity to heal their fractious and dysfunctional relationship. Borels aging chef-hotelier father continues to address her with juvenile-sounding nicknames and refuses to acknowledge his adult daughters emotional needs. These have grown especially heavy for the author to bear since the breakup of a particularly intense affair with her boyfriend and in the wrenching, life-altering aftermath of a deadly traffic accident. Borel struggles to rise to her fathers longing for a daughter as knowledgeable and enamored of wine and food as himself, but she disconnects from the experience. Despite the buried secrets and intense emotions, Borel writes with plenty of humor as her fathers absurd perfectionism gives birth to many dramatically charged encounters with natives as the pair progresses about the French countryside.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)