Search by Michelle Huneven
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What an honest, funny, thought-provoking book! It covers a year in the life of a church committee searching for their next lead minister; comedy and tragedy, soul-searching and politics ensue—anyone who has been a member of a board, committee, jury, or group project can relate.
We go on this journey through the perspective of Dana Potowski, a cookbook author and food reviewer and member of the Arroyo Universalist Unitarian Community Church— the AUUCC—“awk” for short.
The book begins with the “Preface to the Second Edition”—it’s actually the first chapter of this novel-masquerading-as-memoir. It sets the tone for this darkly comic book.
In writing as in meals, it helps to have all the flavors: hot, spicy, sour, salty, sweet, umami (depth). This is reflected in the characters and life situations of the disparate members of the committee. A church, or any organization, is a microcosm of humanity, after all. And in choosing the Universalists, Huneven can give us a church that includes avowed atheists, agnostics, pagans, Jews, Muslims, and Christians.
The committee is composed of individuals representing each adult decade, 20s through 80s. Dana was asked to apply for the committee because she sidetracked from food writing to attend seminary long ago, and she’s a friend of the current minister. It seems unclear at first the one thing that all those chosen for the committee have in common. I guessed it—but that was the last thing I could predict in the story.
You can imagine the wrangling among generations, beliefs, and lifestyles that occurs during meetings, retreats, and—potluck dinners—recipes and delicious descriptions included. Sitting at a common table with a common goal doesn’t always lead to consensus. It’s hilarious, tragic, and painful to see the train wreck coming.
It’s a truthful portrayal of how our beliefs both unite and divide us, and the difficulty of putting faith and ideals and good intentions into practice; also the unintended and unavoidable consequences of secrets, truths, and lies.
I was left with an assurance and a question. The assurance: individual life, its joys and sorrows, goes on after debacle and disaster. The question that lingers: is a church (or a country) greater than the sum of its parts?
The best comedy comes from truth-telling. This wry and hopeful book that takes faith seriously has become one of my favorites; it was delicious.


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