Sourdough Review

This week's novel was Sourdough by Robin Sloan.  It's magical realism (kind of) about bread.  This was a Goodreads Choice Nominee and NPR's Best Books of 2017, so that's how I heard about it.

Lois is a software engineer at a Type-A robot arm company, if companies can be described as Type-A.  She has a favorite take out place, run by two brothers who are ambiguously foreign.  The takeout place is delivery only and has basically one item on their menu, the double spicy, which is a spicy soup and a sandwich on sourdough bread.  When Lois starts eating the double spicy every night, she starts feeling better about her life, as if the bread has magical properties that can lift her spirits.  When the takeout guys are forced to leave the country, they leave her with their sourdough starter and a CD of the music of their people.  Lois figures out how to bake bread, and discovers that the starter glows at night, sings the music of their people, and makes bread with a crust that looks ominously like a human face.

I loved this book, you guys.

Sourdough starters are naturally weird, and pushing them into the realm of magical is not too much of a stretch.  But the book makes it seem like maybe there's a rational explanation for the starter's behavior.  There are experts in microbe colonies sprinkled throughout the book who have scientific explanations for why it acts that way, but it's always ambiguous as to if they just don't understand how whacky the starter is or if the ominous nature of the starter is all in Lois's head. 

In fact, I really like how science and magic work together in this book.  I went in expecting Lois to turn away from her soul crushing programming job to move to the country and bake bread in a brick oven she built herself.  That never happens, because Lois' love for technology, and how good she is at her job are a part of her.  Just like how baking comes to be a part of her.  I really appreciate how the two can live together instead of them working against each other, instead of the book ultimately coming out as a condemnation of technology.

I also really liked the ambiguously foreign brothers.  Turns out they were deported to Edinburgh.  They are Mazg, which is a group of people who relocate frequently and don't have restaurants with signs and tables and don't mix their own music to dubstep beats, because they're "second floor people" who remain mostly anonymous.  The two brothers have some tension about this, because they want to share the music and food of their yeast based culture with the world.  They share stories of the Mazg, which are familiar and yet yeast based.

There really isn't that much of a plot to this.  There's no bad guy trying to steal the starter or use the sourdough for nefarious purposes.  No one is pushing Lois to give up technology and be a baker, or to quit baking and get back to work.  The big conflict at about 2/3 of the way through is how Lois is going to feed the starter enough to make enough bread to meet demand.  But it's so enjoyable in its simplicity as Lois learns to work with the bread and works with her robot arm and meets other food experts and learns about the Mazg over e-mail with the brothers.  There are great descriptions of food.  It's a good time.