Sourdough — Kristen Writes Things

Aug 17

Aug 17 Sourdough

Sourdough, it turns out, is more than just bread. Or, so the title of Robin Sloane’s fun and whimsical new novel tells me. See? It’s even in the name… Sourdough: A novel.

Lois Cleary doesn’t realize it when she orders some spicy soup from a pair of mysterious brothers, but once she tastes the sourdough served on the side, her life will never be the same. She’d go from being a slurry-eating coding machine with zero baking experience to someone who builds a Mad Max-style wood fired oven named Jay Steve and forces strange grinning bread on strangers.

Sarah asks me if that's a typo. It's not. Lois makes bread with facial expressions.

Who knew that your dinner order could change your life?

While most bakers don't end up adventuring with their loaves of bread, Lois does. Her loaves are like edible keys, the kind that throw doors open to all sorts of weird places, including possibly radioactive abandoned underground missile silos masquerading as super alternative farmers markets. We get to go along for the ride.

We also get all sorts of weird trivia, which I appreciate. Way to slip fun facts into my fantasy reading, Mr. Sloane.

Lois as a character is lovable and weird. She could be any of us… except maybe the part where she programs robot arms. That’s a bit outside my range… but aside from that, we're probably the same person.

Like his last book, Mr Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore, Sloane's latest offering is also about a Bay Area software developer. And yeah, the main character discovers a fascinating alternate universe under her nose... again. It might seem like a repeat of the magical tag-team adventure that was Penumbra, but it's really not. There's something undeniably niche and repeatable developing here with Sloane's protagonists, but there's no shortage of diversity in his plots. At once, these books manage to be both the same and totally different. Relatable, funny, and yet totally surreal.

I'm almost sure that if you enjoy these two books, you'll probably enjoy anything that comes from this guy in the future...

The first chapters of the book might be slow for some, but they also pretty much sum up what it’s like to work in tech, with it’s ridiculous personalities, crazy intensity, and almost complete divestment from reality. Robin Sloane must be working from the inside, because everything is spot on, from the description of weird cult-like CEO behavior, to brogrammer dynamics, to his rendering of what might actually be our SF office cafeteria.

The love/hate burnout stuff was totally familiar to me and it might be for you, too. Hit close to home much?

(Not the part about being named Lois, although that’d be fine with me. It’s a perfectly lovely name and it apparently it comes with its own club. There aren’t any Kristen clubs out there. Believe me, I looked. I’m afraid to Google Krissy club. Somehow I’m convinced it’s going to return something NSFW, and since I might be posting this on my lunch from my work machine, excuse me if I’m not especially eager to add that hyperlink and invite Big Brother to my desk.)

This book probably sounds pretty good to you right now, right? But, I warn you…

Do not read this funny, sweet, and mildly hilarious novel

if you’re thinking about:

quitting tech to make artisan bread to the sound of Mazg once-oonce music
if you like hanging out with philosophers who are also bacteria experts (whether or not they also farm goats and/or have a llama wingman named Hercules)
if you’ve ever wanted to stage a mock war between a garbage can of magical Genghis Khan-level-violent bacteria and a vat of seriously meek King Arthur flour.
confronting Alice Waters of Chez Panisse
have an irrational fear of nameless, faceless benefactors who talk to you using the mouth of an animated fish in an still life painting
live off of/are principle stock holder in companies that make nutritional gel

If you aren’t struggling with any of the bullet points above, I’d suggest you have at it. And maybe even if you are. After all, life takes us to weird places (like Alameda). And like Lois, maybe it’s time for all of us to consider getting back to basics and doing something that gets us dirty, gives us pleasure, and perhaps makes us show up in another country unannounced with nothing but a suitcase, a prayer, and a robot arm.

PS. As an aside, this post made me think of all of the other great books that are based in the Bay. Immediately half of Christopher Moore's books come to mind. That is, the ones that don't suck. (There is no accounting for the bad that is The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove.) If you like fanciful books that take place in the bay, I heartily recommend these gems: