What do we truly hunger for?

For some, it is the quest to be thin and beautiful. For others, it is to own more, have the best, be the most desired. Author Caroline Knapp calls these appetites, and in her book of the same name deems them the source of an emotional hunger that disorders people's lives.

Knapp struggled with anorexia from age 21, weighing in at 83 pounds though she stood at 5-foot-4. For three years she ate the same daily meals: one plain sesame bagel for breakfast, a yogurt for lunch and an apple and a 1-inch cube of cheese for dinner.

Nevertheless, she was always cold and unhappy, she had no breasts, she couldn't menstruate and she didn't have a clue as to why she was starving herself.

After eventually gaining control of her eating habits, Knapp looked back and explained her compulsion: "Anorexics are masters of exaggeration, they take a certain satisfaction in going the average woman one better, internalizing her worst fears and then inflating them, flaunting them, throwing them back in her face."

At a time when she felt adrift and confused and deeply unsure of herself, Knapp found that starving gave her a goal, a way to stand out and exert control, something she could be good at. But when she finally gave it up, she then moved on to having an affair with her college thesis adviser and then to binge spending and excessive drinking.

Appetites is mostly a book of questioning and self-examination. Knapp agonizes over the difficulties in her life, with all its extremes and insecurities, and she tries desperately to pinpoint their origin. At times, she blames family dynamics and a mother who didn't care enough.

She also goes after the culture within which she grew up, blaming seductive ads and magazine articles for controlling what a woman should desire. She notes that we are continually urged to spend, spend, spend as financial institutions bury us in pre-approved credit card applications.

Appetites is disturbing for its frankness and the deeply honest feelings of despair the author shares page after page. However, her pain doesn't make you want to keep reading. It's depressing. Knapp dabbles with resolutions to her problems and she tries to convince the reader that she's left her emotional hunger behind. Yet she seems merely to be tossing about in an open sea, with dry land in sight but not within reach.

Sadly, Knapp died of lung cancer at age 42, just before this book was published. Previously, she wrote two best-selling books, Drinking: A Love Story and Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs.

In this last book, she wants women to understand that they must control their own destinies, rather than be negatively influenced by external forces. Yet at book's end, the "how" is still dangling out there.

Verna Noel Jones is a free-lance writer living in Aurora.