Jonathan Safran Foer might not like to be called a celebrity, but I'm going to do it nonetheless. Not to bug him, since I'm a fan and I hold him in high esteem, but because I'm a fan and hold him in high esteem and know that anything he says will be heard by many people. Which is why I applaud him, as a celebrity, for writing Eating Animals.
When I first saw mention on his book my stomach gripped into a knot and my eyes filled. Because for some time I've been working on a manuscript about eating meat. My finger hovered over the delete key, ready to throw what there is of my book into the virtual garbage can, until my partner Dave, always one to see the bigger picture, said that he thought that maybe, just maybe, there was room in the world for more than one book on the topic. Further, he pointed out that this was not the first book about eating meat.
I do still feel grim about the prospect of being published now that someone so famous has covered the topic in such an articulate and compelling way, but I am going to keep writing nonetheless. It's an issue I've been interested in since I gave up meat at the age of seventeen. And Dave is right, it's not going away. There are new reasons to be interested in what we eat that simply didn't have currency or urgency back when I became a vegetarian.
Still, I am impressed that someone with such a big profile would take the subject on. Look what happened to Oprah when she suggested people cut down on burgers. I'm sure there will be backlash but I hope that prior to that he receives an enormous amount of praise for putting his personal opinions out there in such an honest way. Hats off to you, Mr Foer.
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