Karen uses a first person, present tense frame around a past tense narrative that often sounds omniscient--a terrific risk that I love, getting omniscient effects out of a first person narrator, a gambit the novel shares with one of my favorites, The Great Gatsby. This approach is sometimes referred to as inference; it's the narrator taking on an omniscient mode as he or she infers what might have been going on in another character's head. If it works, the reader can actually forget it's a first person novel, and, even when the reader remembers who is telling the story, it can be satisfying to watch the writer making these choices, and speculate why, and how reliable the information given is meant to be. It adds a layer of complexity that provokes thought. From time to time, the narrator, daughter of protagonist Irini Doyle, steps in, reminding the reader of her presence, and gives glimpses of her method and reasons for writing this account of the one year, 1947, when her mother play played baseball for the Sweetwheat Sweethearts (named for their breakfast cereal sponsor). This quote will give a sense not only of the narrator's method and intent, but also of her delightful voice: "The story I want to tell now is a story my mother told to me. It takes place in a time before I was born, a time I must work to imagine. When my mother told it to me, it was a very short story. I have been forced to compensate not only for its gentle outlook, but also for her spare narration. "You would do well therefore to keep always in mind that this is a story told by two liars. It is possible, our fictional impulses being so opposite, that we may arrive together at something clear-eyed and straightforward, the way two negative numbers multiplied together produce a positive value. If this happens it will be by accident. It is not my intention. I will go so far as to say I would consider it a disappointment."That "I must work to imagine" also goes for the job of the writer, so there is a doubling effect of purpose and meaning here. Cognitive music, Harold Bloom calls it, and this is something I prize in fiction.As for that delightful voice, it's everywhere evident; there's an abundance of wit and humor--I could turn to almost any page and find several examples of a writer at the top of her form. The moon, seen one night by Irini--but described for us, remember, by Irini's daughter--is "untouched by boots and nationalism, and made up only of poetry and metaphor and cold, reflected light." This begins a wonderful segment where the youthful, hopeful, aching-to-leave-her-small-town-but-devoted-to-her-father Irini, still looking up at the sky at night, is her daughter's launchpad for this passage: "The sky was brighter in 1947. This must be why our parents' songs are so celestial: 'Stardust," and ... "Shine On Harvest Moon," and so on and so on. In Magrit, where there were few houses and no street lights at all, the stars were crowded into every corner of the sky, thick as summer clover.... It is only us and only now, after all those centuries, finally drowning them into silence with our own innumerable lights."Another character is described as a quiet woman, "but this was probably not so much a function of shyness as it was of lack of practice. She was an avid reader, which is almost the same thing as having friends." Irini's father, "Never drank liquor in the morning on a workday. It was a point of pride with him." It goes on like this, wry and sharp, throughout the novel.One last thing to note: the baseball they play takes a back seat to the rest of life here; in fact, it might be more accurate to say that baseball takes the bed of the truck, it's that far in the background. This is not A League of Their Own. Rather, it's a daughter's account of her mother, long after her mother is dead, and an account of her mother's era, an attempt to explain both to herself in a satisfying way. And the author's as well. Karen is on record with an interviewer as agreeing that the book's central question is, How did that generation, confronted with the Holocaust and the atomic bombing of two civilian targets, race riots, and lynchings, maintain a hopeful innocence about the world and humanity, while her own generation's "tendency toward despair, pessimism, and whining seems a more sensible reaction to the facts as they have been presented to us. But I very much admire the other [generation's] response."
Dear Maggie,I have been wanting to read a book for the longest time, but the ones I have are either too brief or deep. Could you advise me on which book I could pick up? - Bored in ManilaDear Bored in Manila,It seems to me that you would be better off reading magazines as they provide readers with light topics that books could not give you. You see, the intensity of issues within a story are very relative. What may be a serious topic for me might be a shallow matter for you. Therefore, I could not outright say that you should read this or that as they are guaranteed easy to read.I would, however, recommend reading The Sweetheart Season by Karen Joy Fowler while you are on a search for your 'light and easy' book. This story has that good mix of lighthearted wit and drama and might actually be perfect for you, if you feel that living in a small town whose young men had never returned to after the war, leaving the young women's marriage prospects in jeopardy a good enough premise.The story takes place in Magrit, where a cereal mill owned by one of the richest resident supplies most of the employment for its inhabitants. This cereal mill also produces a women's magazine where a fictitious agony aunt by the name of Maggie Collins serves as its ambassadress. Finding that the young men have left town permanently, the owner of the mill decided to put up a baseball team - The Sweethearts - composed of the young women under his employ and let them travel to different towns in order to spread the word about their product, Sweetheart Cereal, and of course, let the young women meet and mingle with young men.This book has elements of good humor and chick literature that I am sure would appeal to most women, especially those who loved the movie A League of Their Own about women playing baseball during the war. However, some chapters, especially those in the beginning, seemed to read too slow and insignificant, although reading until the end, one would find that the beginning chapters would help everything come full circle. I just hope that you can get past the drag and be able to plow through the ending. Also, may I advise you to use a bit more imagination while reading this as that can help a long way in making you understand everything that happens as there were some parts there that at face value would seem unimportant and irrelevant, but were actually defining moments or turning points in the story. A little more imagination and attention to detail would get you a long way in reading this book.That said, I hope you can get a copy of this book and read this, and I hope this is light enough for you - at least good enough until you find your perfect easy-reading book. Ever Reliable, Maggie
What do You think about The Sweetheart Season (1998)?
I really like Karen Joy Fowler. She's very funny and accessible in person. And her characters in this book are pretty accessible too. The story kind of meanders nicely along, kind of like in Empire Falls by Richard Russo, and then WHOA, this book is about that? I guess I like to have a stronger sense of plot undercurrents before the last quarter of a book. I prefer "Sarah Canary" which is nutty, and whimsical, and weird, but with characters that are also accessible and are definitely more interesting, with odd plot undercurrents popping up everywhere. And it takes place mostly in Washington, so I can try to envision what it was then. Tacoma, a wilderness area. Huh
—Jessica
I had bypassed this book earlier, based on the subject matter. I thought it was too "A League of Their Own." But it was much more "Road to Wellville." Except with ghosts. And a sort of tall-tale America-is-young north woods atmosphere.The introduction of Gandhi and satyagraha at the halfway point was at an interesting counterpoint to American post-war optimism in a rural Michigan cereal town. But it was only on the last page that it really came clear. Betty Crocker = Kali. Of course!!!
—Alisa
This was a well-written novel set in the late 1940s immediately following WWII. In a small mill town, all the boys have gone off to war and don't seem to want to come home when it's over, leaving a crop of young single girls without boys to date or marry. The mill's owner and town benefactor decides that a traveling girls baseball team is the answer for his maiden employees social woes (and for advertising his breakfast cereal).I thought this would be a kind of "League of Their Own" kind of story, but it really wasn't. Baseball was only a little part of the story. There were many intersecting plots, primarily driven by the town history and how each family in the town had been affected by it.I think this book had more potential than it realized. The narrator was the daughter of the main character, Irini. She primarily acted as an omniscient 3rd-person narrator, but occasionally injected her opinion or insight. She also freely admitted that she had a tendency to exaggerate and might be making up parts of the story, which I think was supposed to be a sort of literary device to make the reader question the different perspectives of a woman coming of age in the 40s versus the 60s (as the narrator would have). At least, the jacket cover seems to suggest that's what the book is about. However, if that was the author's intent, it wasn't successfully realized. There wasn't enough information about the daughter to think that her own world-view as influencing the story significantly. That is, until the afterword, which created a whole different spin on the ending that I just found bizarre & out of place with the previous story telling.Bottom line: Interesting story. Well-developed characters. Non sequitur. ending.
—Jillaire
