Written in her fine prosaic style as a series of vignettes, this rewarding book recounts the life and adventures of respected writer Mary Fisher during her travels in America and Europe. The events are filled with wonderful details of people, places, foods, and thoughts, through decades of her life. "Here are the voluptuous meals recalled by a woman who savored not only the food and wine but every detail of setting and nuance of conversation. Here, too, are meditations on travel by freighter…And here are the vivid evocations of places." "To my mind, As They Were contains some of the best writing M.F.K. Fisher has ever done." "In a properly run culture, Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher would be recognized as one of the great writers this country has produced in this century." "A breath of poetry wraps us as she relives for us a lifetime…She is the attentive spectator of her own life as well as its narrator." "She deserves the widest possible audience…The restaurants, hotels and markets she visits are aswarm with people and things, all of which she describes in fine detail, making the reader taste and hear and smell and see as few other writers can…Wherever she is, wherever she goes, she is grand company." "Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher is a national treasure. For nearly fifty years she has been writing rare, fine prose about so many things that she is nearly impossible to define."
"Listening to Hébert's delicate reading of the decades-old reminiscences…is like sharing an evening with a gracious gourmet."
