Two Books About Siblings

Reprinted from the Citizen:

The sibling relationship can provide drama in real life, and two recently published novels dive deep into those waters with J. Ryan Stradal’s second novel, The Lager Queen of Minnesota, and Ann Patchett’s tenth book, The Dutch House. 

Stradal’s first novel, Kitchens of the Great Midwest was a critically acclaimed story of a talented young chef staying true to herself and her food. In The Lager Queen of Minnesota we meet Edith, 64 years old, who works as a dietary aide in a nursing home. She bakes pies for the residents, and hers are named the third-best pies in the entire state by a hip newspaper. 

Soon, people are lined up trying to get into the nursing home dining room to try Edith’s pies. Edith and her retired husband Stanley struggle financially, but maybe this is a way to make some money and become more stable.

Edith grew up on a family farm, with her parents and sister Helen. When their father passed away, it was assumed that the farm would be sold and the sisters would split the money. But their father left it all to Helen, who took the money and with it, she and her husband became one of the biggest brewers in the Midwest.

After that, Edith refused to speak to Helen, but Helen was so busy creating her empire that she put it aside. When Edith’s granddaughter Diana comes to live with her, Diana ends up working at a local IPA brewer, and it turns out that she is very good as a brewmaster.

When Diana needs help, she turns to Edith and a group of older women who prove that age is just a number, and when the chips are down, there are people around to pick you up. 

You don’t have to like beer to appreciate The Lager Queen of Minnesota, but if you like a good IPA, you’ll get more out of this fantastic novel. I enjoyed learning about the brewing business. The Midwest setting is a welcome change from the urban settings of many books, and the characters are grounded in reality. I highly recommend this novel.

In Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House Cyril Conroy creates a successful business in real estate after WWII in Philadelphia. He surprises his wife by buying the Dutch House, a huge mansion in the suburbs. But is it a good surprise?

With the house comes a staff of three women who help raise the two children, Maeve and Danny. Their mother seems very unhappy, and disappears from time to time, until one day she leaves and never comes back.

Tenacious young widow Andrea sets her sights on Cyril, and their shared love of the Dutch House brings them together. When Cyril marries Andrea, she brings along her two young daughters. Like the wicked stepmother in fairy tales, Andrea bides her time until she can force Maeve and Danny from the Dutch House, and claim it as her own.

This devastates Maeve and Danny. They have lost the only home they have ever known, and any connection to their parents. Maeve, who is out in the workforce, takes in her high-school aged brother, and they live together in a small apartment.

Danny narrates this beautifully told story as he tries to understand where he fits into this world. Although the narration switches back and forth in time, Patchett is such a skilled writer that it all flows so smoothly, and the reader is never confused.

Maeve and Danny occasionally park outside the Dutch House, peering inside and reliving the past while talking about the future. We follow them through college, work, adulthood, and eventually Danny has a marriage and family of his own.

Maeve can’t seem to move forward with her life, and she tries to push Danny to go to medical school to become a doctor, but for her own reasons. When Danny meets the woman he wants to marry, she is concerned by how close Danny and Maeve are, and the influence Maeve wields over him. This causes problems for Danny as the two people he loves most don’t like each other.

Since we see Maeve through Danny’s eyes, she is perhaps not as well known to the reader. But they have an unshakeable bond that gets tested at the end of the story as they confront their past, the cost of forgiveness, and the meaning of family. I loved The Dutch House and highly recommend it.

The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal- A+

Published by Pamela Dorman Books

Hardcover, $26, 349 pages

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett- A+

Published by HarperCollins

Hardcover, $27.99, 352 pages

Friday 5ive- Catching Up

The Friday 5ive is a weekly blog post about five things that caught my attention that week. The last few posts have been about our trip to Italy, so I've got some catching up to do.

1) Our annual team trip to the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy was in September. This year, we had a outing to see the Broadway Ain't Too Proud to Beg, about the R&B group The Temptations. It was a fantastic show! If you've ever seen The Jersey Boys, you must see Ain't Too Proud To Beg. There's so much about the evolution of the Temptations that I didn't know. Members came and went, drug abuse, dissension in the ranks about the direction of the group, it's all here. You'll know most of songs (and want to sing them, but please don't do that during the show) and the choreography is phenomenal. It was a thumbs-up from all seven of us. You can get more information and tickets here.

2) We had another guest visit us and we took the tour of Old St. Patrick's Cathedral in Little Italy. It was so interesting, our tour guide Mike was great.  We got to go upstairs and see behind the massive pipe organ that has over 2600 pipes. It is massive! The highlight of the tour is going into the catacombs where several bishops and wealthy patrons are buried. The tomb that caught my eye was for Countess Annie Leary, a wealthy heiress who, when she died in 1919, donated a great deal of her money to the Archdiocese of New York, including $200,000 to build the sacristy at the new St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Ave. She was supposed to be buried in a vault there, but for some reason it didn't happen.  She had fabulous parties at her Fifth Avenue townhouse and was reported to be a hoarder. There is a story in the New York Times about her here, I'm going to try to find a book about her. Tickets for the tour can be found here.

The catacombs

The view of Old St. Patrick's from the choir balcony

3) We took our visitor to Sant Ambroeus to get some gelato after dinner and when we came out of the restaurant, I spied Billy Joel sitting on a bench outside. If I had know he was there, we would have bought him a gelato too.

Billy Joel

4) Singer/actress/dynamo Kristin Chenoweth visited the Barnes & Noble Upper East Side to promote her new CD For The Girls. She was interviewed by Frank Dilello from NY1, and then signed copies of the CD. She talked about choosing the songs for the CD (so many had to be cut), the time when seven-year-old Ariana Grande came backstage when Kristin was in Wicked on Broadway (and now Ariana does a fabulous duet of Lesley Gore's You Don't Own Me on the CD), and how her father told her she forgot to wear pants on the cover of the CD. I play For The Girls constantly, I love all the songs on it.

5) I've been reading a great deal since we got back from Italy, and one of the best books I read is J. Ryan Stradal's The Lager Queen of Minnesota, about a young woman raised by her grandmother who, when she is at odds with her life, ends up working in a small craft brewery and becomes, yes, The Lager Queen of Minnesota. It's got great characters, (sisters who have a lifelong falling out), a terrific Midwest setting, and Stradal is a fabulous writer. Read this book, I'll post a review soon.