Warming Up Julia Child: The Remarkable Figures Who Shaped a Legend

A Pulitzer Prize finalist peels back the curtain on an unexplored part of Julia Child's life—the formidable team of six she collaborated with to shape her legendary career.

Julia Child's monumental Mastering the Art of French Cooking and iconic television show The French Chef required a team of innovators to bring out her unique presence and personality. Warming Up Julia Child is a behind-the-scenes look at this supporting team, revealing how the savvy of these helpers, collaborators, and supporters contributed to Julia's overwhelming success. In today’s parlance, they were her posse, her entourage.

Julia is the central subject, but Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz has her share the stage with those who aided her work. She reveals that the most important element in Julia Child’s ultimate success was her unusual capacity for forming fruitful alliances, whether it was Paul Child, Simone Beck, Avis DeVoto, Judith Jones and William Koshland (at Knopf), and Ruth Lockwood (at WGBH). Without the contribution of these six collaborators Julia could never have accomplished what she did.

Filled with vivid correspondence, fascinating characters, and the iconic joie de vivre that makes us come back to Julia again and again, Warming Up Julia Child is essential reading for anyone who adores Julia and her legacy.