Delicious Foods

Image of Delicious Foods: A Novel
Author(s): 
Release Date: 
March 17, 2015
Publisher/Imprint: 
Little, Brown & Company
Pages: 
384
Reviewed by: 

Darlene Hardison once led a happy life. She married Nat, the man she loved since college and they owned Mount Hope Grocery, a local general store in tiny segregated town of Orvis, Louisiana. They share their dream and are blessed with a son named Eddie.

Nat, well known to proclaim against the indignities suffered by the black community, spouts off once too often, and one night he does not return home. Nat has been beaten to death then set on fire obliterating the business along with his body.

The grief, too much for Darlene to bear, causes her to wallow in self pity and succumb to the call of drugs. Her life continues on a downward spiral.

One night when Darlene does not return to the Houston apartment she shares with eleven-year-old Eddie, he goes out searching for her. He ceaselessly roams the seediest parts of the city until the wee hours asking everyone he encounters if they have seen his mother. What Eddie does not realize is that one night while Darlene is prostituting for drug money, she got beaten and left on the sidewalk like road kill.

Darlene, lying in the gutter, is greeted by a woman named Jackie who approaches her with the offer of a wonderful job, which includes housing, food, and a salary. At this point all Darlene can envision is her next hit, and she willingly accepts.

Her responsibilities are to work at the Delicious Foods farm as a laborer, at a location unknown to her. She resolves to return for Eddie when she earns enough to make a new life for them both. One problem: Darlene and the others, in a stupor from the drugs, sign contracts making it impossible for them to leave.

Darlene's mind is fried from the drugs, to the point where she seems to adapt a split-personality. The back story is intertwined throughout, and Darlene's deteriorating mind proves somewhat confusing; however, as the story progresses, an explanation of why this happens gives clarity to her discourse.

The degradation and inhumane treatment Darlene and these workers face are portrayed in the following commentary taken from the text through Darlene’s drug-induced mind:

"We was in front of this long one-story building made of concrete . . . with a strong shit smell . . . so bad that it reached its whole hand up inside your nose, pinched the bottom of your brain, and twisted your tear ducts like a lemon peel going into a motherfucking cocktail.

". . . they got rows of perfectly fine bunk beds laying not very far apart going through the whole space . . . people of all kinda brown colors was tossing around in them beds without no sheets, looking like a box of chocolates that had fell on the floor and got smashed and then put back into the smashed box. A bunch of them beds had striped mattresses on ’em with rusty springs poking through the tops and the tops was ripped up."

These are only smalls detail of the indignities expounded on by Darlene, and the only thing keeping her and the others functioning is the endless supply of drugs and alcohol received so they forget the inhumane conditions in which they live. 

In her lucid moments, Darlene thinks of escaping and finding her son, while in his case he is intent on locating her, which he eventually does. Then we are witness to the horrors Eddie faces.

Delicious Foods exposes the condition of forced slavery and helplessness many endure, especially when addicted or poor. It is deplorable that situations like this could and probably do occur, with these dejected folks imprisoned and mistreated only because of their vulnerable lifestyle and the greed of others. The many uses of profanity do not detract from this, but rather enhance the immorality those enslaved contend with.

Hannaham's novel is deeply emotive; the poignant characters deal with distressing adversity. Ultimately, the book is intensely agonizing as well as enlightening.