My Hero

"Living for Candy, and Sugar-Coated Goblins"

By DAVID COLMAN
Published: October 27, 2009

HALLOWEEN always brings bogeymen to terrify children, but this year the bookstore holds its own terrors for parents. “I Shudder,” ($23.95, HarperCollins), the new book by the playwright and humorist Paul Rudnick, reveals a horrible truth no parent wants published: It is possible, it seems, to live on candy.

Mr. Rudnick is the living proof. At 51, 5-foot-10 and an enviably lean 150 pounds, Mr. Rudnick does not square with the inevitable mental image of a man who has barely touched a vegetable other than candy corn in nearly a half-century. Apparently, one can not only live on a dessert island, but can also do it happily and long.

“People always assume I’m lying,” said Mr. Rudnick earlier this month in his West Village apartment packed from ceiling to floor with Gothic ornamentation. “They always say: ‘That can’t be true. You’d be dead. Or huge.’ ”

But as Mr. Rudnick insisted (as he does in “I Shudder,” a collection of short pieces ranging from recollections to screeds), he is not dissembling or diseased. “There was never a time when I was not refined-sugar-centric,” he said flatly. “I was always appalled by almost all other foods; I could not understand why anyone wanted them. I did not like the taste, the smell, the concept.”

At the age of 6 he was even sent to a psychiatrist, who told his parents their son was otherwise well-adjusted, and to let him eat what he wanted and just see what happened.

“His advice was, basically, ‘Just let it go, otherwise, you will have to tie him down, force feed him, and shield your face from the projectile vomit,’ ” he recalled. “I was so dead certain about it, so completely unwilling to entertain any options that they basically had no choice.”


Recalling trick-or-treating as a child in suburban New Jersey, he’s still in awe of people who gave out full-size candy bars, and is still appalled by those people who dared to put apples in trick-or-treaters’ bags. “No,” he said. “Halloween is about free candy, not diet tips.”

For his part, Mr. Rudnick said that his latest blood tests were fine, and that he has had no more dental problems than any nonsugar-fixated members of his family. And, he added, his diet does include some foods, which, if not exactly health foods, do at least have a sugar level that is minor or nil, like Cheerios.

And for those who still think he should be dead from malnourishment, Suzanne Havala Hobbs, a registered dietician and a clinical associate professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, offered a different view.

“Some people defy all odds,” she said. “The body really can adapt to an amazing range of dietary conditions. I remember consulting for a group home, and there was a little girl there I always thought of as an air plant. She only ate white bread and fruit. I followed her for years, and she grew up all right. Somehow she got enough to grow on.”

As for Mr. Rudnick, he does not celebrate the holiday itself. “I’m one of those people who just leaves the basket outside, with the implied imperative: Don’t Knock.”

Which is probably just as well. You don’t want him setting an example.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/dining/28Rudn.html?_r=1]