Dharma Butcher Reviewed!

The venerable Mary Ann Grossman - Queen Regent of Capitol City Literati - featured my latest book, Dharma Butcher, in her column last Sunday...

Humbled and honored to discover that my latest book made an appearance in the print press! Many thanks to Mary Ann Grossmann and the Pioneer Press for the review of Dharma Butcher in yesterday's Readers and Writers column.

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“Dharma Butcher”: by JD Fratzke (Liquid North Publishing, $24)

Jack’s voice was a warm hand on my shoulder and a strong affection — the older brother he was to me then looking into my eyes to simply remind me that nothing ever matters or has ever really meant anything. I could let go and whirl in the dharma tornado, let it take me for a ride. — from “Dharma Butcher"

JD Fratzke’s new book is an eclectic collection that is part poetry, part autobiography, part recipes, part homage to the Beat poets. “Dharma” is for Jack Kerouac and the other Beats; “Butcher” is the author’s private life.

Fratzke has been prominent on the hospitality scene for more than 30 years as a high-profile chef, a consultant and a writer whose thoughts on food and challenges of cooking have been published in the Pioneer Press. His 2024 debut, “River Language,” was about his love of the wilderness, but his new book is wider-ranging. His aim was to write about the Beats in a way that would bridge generations.

Running through the book is Fratzke’s commitment to Buddhist practice: “I sit lotus/at the edge of a sylvan pond/In a lush grove of poplars/And I take refuge in/The Buddha/And/The Dharma/And/The Sangha.” He shares thoughts about the relationship between humans and animals they eat as he cuts up a duck. And he tells of moving to Minneapolis at age 19 when he was looking for “… a life making, watching and listening to loud rock and roll. Minneapolis laid the opportunity to do so at my feet. I worked in record stores and nightclubs. I was asked to join a band as their singer and lyricist.”

The final quarter of this paperback is about how deeply the Beats affected Fratzke as a young writer. He gives us a “book report” comparing Kerouac’s books “On the Road” and “The Dharma Bums” and recalls his emotions seeing an exhibit at Walker Art Center that included a 1959 clip of TV host Steve Allen welcoming Kerouac reading from “On the Road.”

It ends with haiku and Zen poems: “I slurp my buckwheat noodles/And watch the new snow/A bird pauses to warm itself/On the neighbor’s chimney.”