Otherwise Normal People: Inside the Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening [Hardcover]

Aurelia C. Scott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 18, 2007

Twice a year America's rose lovers cut the prettiest blossoms off their best plants and travel to the national rose show, where they lovingly groom their precious blooms for hours in a frigid hall in order to contend for the highest honor: the Queen of Show. Doctors. Teachers. Sheet metal mechanics. Lawyers. Truck drivers. Men and women. These are type A gardeners, and for them this is a blood sport. They grow tender roses in the frigid North and disease prone roses in the humid South simply for the challenge. They decorate otherwise lovely yards with paper bags and panty hose to isolate their choice specimens. They traipse through overgrown fields in the worst weather to save antique roses from extinction.

Aurelia Scott trails these self-professed Roseaholics as they plan, prepare, and compete, battling high winds, Japanese beetles, and the finicky demands of their precious charges. With all the appeal of Word Freak, Otherwise Normal People celebrates the singular satisfaction of cultivating beauty—and, of course, the thrill of victory.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Scott, a freelance journalist from Maine, hung out with several of the gardeners competing in the American Rose Society's 2004 spring national show. She discovered a subculture "where brain surgeons and construction workers are social equals," with a freewheeling competitive "spirit of make-do and can-do" that inspires improvisations like creating rose beds out of 40-gallon trash cans. (Two glossaries explain the classifications and other terminology for unfamiliar readers.) Scott's narrative structure—a chapter with each of her topics, building up to the competition, with a brief epilogue—is similar to the film Best in Show, but she doesn't poke fun, and for the most part she's caught up in their "infectious" enthusiasm for roses. Whatever weight they exert on her own passion for gardening, however, remains largely unspoken. When Scott admits that her desire to practice organic gardening is dampened by her jealousy of the blooms an interview subject achieves spraying with chemicals, the personal revelation is jarring in its unexpectedness. The backseat approach frees Scott to elaborate on the outsized personalities of the gardeners she met. If only their colorful stories were matched by photographs of the flowers they raised. (May 18)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

A rose is a rose is a rose, but don't try telling that to the hundreds of self-acknowledged "rose-aholics" who wake in the middle of the night, pack up jury-rigged coolers and containers laden with pristine blossoms, and head off down the highway to compete in local, regional, and national rose exhibitions. Scott follows the most passionate of the bunch as they prepare gardens, prune canes, protect blooms, and pinch back buds, all in the hopes of taking home crystal bowls, silver candlesticks, and, at the very least, blue ribbons proclaiming their prowess at growing some of Mother Nature's finickiest flowers. As colorful as the bouquets they propagate, Scott's rosarians represent an ecumenical cross section of the American landscape: PhDs seek advice from long-haul truckers, first-generation immigrants compete against Mayflower descendants, and long-married couples bond over blooms. With a breezy, infectious enthusiasm, Scott offers a vividly engaging account of big-time rose competition and the seemingly average individuals who take leave of their senses in this addictively sensory pursuit. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 235 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books (May 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565124642
• ISBN-13: 978-1565124646
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,128,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Aurelia C. Scott is the author of Otherwise Normal People, published by Algonquin Books. She lives in Portland, Maine, where she grows roses and other flowering plants within sight of Casco Bay, and writes for Cottage Living, Garden Design, Fine Gardening, Down East, and the New York Times among other publications. She's also Contributing Editor for AudioFile Magazine, the magazine for people who love audiobooks.

Aurelia is the winner of a number of writing awards, including the Writer's Digest Grand Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New Roses and Old, June 6, 2007

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Otherwise Normal People: Inside the Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening (Hardcover)

I don't know much about flowers, but my interest in obsession and collecting is pretty wide, and I leaped on this book in the same way as I read recent books about crossword puzzles and beauty pageants. When I was in Portland last month several friends were already reading advance copies, claiming this Aurelia Scott had written a book which named names and takes no prisoners, and that in rosarian circles, her book would raise eyebrows and snap certain reputations.

I have found on the contrary that she has written a gentle, merry book celebrating rose shows and the world of exhibition roses, it is not at all an expose of any kind. She is remarkably kind about her subjects, and to tell you the truth, her writing is possibly too charitable, could have used a bit more spice. She seems overly impressed by the work these gardeners spend on their gardens, and the number of roses they keep at home. OK, she takes a few snipes at Tommy Cairns and Luis Desamero, apparently the only gay men involved in the rose world. Luis especially comes across as a true eccentric, in his powder blue shorts, sort of a Lt. Dangle of the competitive rose world. It's great when he enters one contest that's actually been named after him, with a rose that carries his own name; it's either queen-size vanity or true ego fulfillment. Luis winds up winning the "Climber" award--touche!

Scott doesn't dwell overmuch on how these people finance this hobby, but it doesn't seem cheap. They must all be extremely well to do, to run around the country entering their wares, much less devote acres of private garden to their floribunda and Lynn Andersons. I was sort of curious about the economy of these shows. Are they just for rich people? Or do regular Joe Schmoes enter too? At any rate, rosegrowing seems to call for masses of time, a true luxury. "The only thing more frustrating than making an orange rose fit," moans Satish Prabhu, "is playing golf." Where Scott excels is showing how what seems like a harmless habit can take over your whole life, break up your marriage, turn you into a competitive rose-growing machine. But on the upside, you are surrounded at every turn by beauty. She counterposes the cut throat exhibition crowd to the so called "old garden rose" people, who seem much more genteel and into their history. Naturally the blowsy, smelly old roses don't win Queen of Show in competitions, the scent hasn't been bred out of them, and they're often crooked and misshapen by modern standards, and yet they have that "heirloom" thing going on, a touch of class in a strange new century.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Otherwise Normal Review, September 10, 2007

By 

N. K. Dickerson (Virginia Beach, Virginia USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Otherwise Normal People: Inside the Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening (Hardcover)

If you're into roses, you'll read this book with a smile and also with a notepad to record new tricks of the trade.
The personalities of the featured rosarians definitely "come through."
The style, subject matter, and the rosarians are a delight.
This is a must read for any serious rosarian.

5.0 out of 5 stars Rose Madness?!, December 19, 2007

By 

Kassia V. Pereira "Kassia" (Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Otherwise Normal People: Inside the Thorny World of Competitive Rose Gardening (Hardcover)

I truly enjoyed this book! Regardless if you show roses or not, this is a very informative book. I don't show my roses but as rose lover I really enjoy looking at "healthy looking roses" and learning so I really had a good time reading this book. Too bad it doesn't have pictures!!!!
It's a very easy and pleasurable reading! It makes me want to see the rose gardens she mention!