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What happened to the woman behind the movie "Julie and Julia?"
Last night, Meryl Streep didn’t win the Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of Julia Child in the movie “Julie and Julia.” Streep, without the golden statue recognition, managed to pull off the most incredible facsimile of the iconoclastic chef. But what happened to the woman who wrote the book the movie was based on — Julie Powell?
She was in Tulsa at the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma last December speaking about her new book, “Cleaving, A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession” (Little, Brown, 2009). She garnered a big crowd, about 150 people (mostly women), at a remote place on a cold, dark night.
“Cleaving,” another a memoir, investigates her life after “movie” fame, and it fell apart — well, her marriage did. When life should never be sweeter, Powell feels unanchored. She takes on a lover and a butchering job to add complications.
The 29-year-old, brunet-maned author embarks on a quest to learn how to cleave in hopes to find how to bind her personal life. “Cleave” is a rarely used verb fraught with double meanings: to cut, split or to adhere, cling. The noun “cleaver” is more familiar. Powell manipulates language; you’ll enjoy keeping up with her. She opens and closes the book cleaving a liver.
“A liver is a mystery. It’s a filter. The liver records experience, the indulgences and wrong turns … But it keeps what it knows a secret.”
Powell didn’t keep her stumbles a secret, making for a good read. She and her husband have reconciled and Powell promises not to write another memoir. I bet her husband, Eric, is grateful.
