The Sweetheart Season: A Novel [Hardcover]

Karen Joy Fowler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1996

In 1947, the bucolic mill town of Magrit, Minnesota, confronts the terrible problem that none of its young men want to return home, leaving the town's girls romantically bereft, until the old mill owner forms a ball team and puts them on the road. By the author of Sarah Canary.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Though most men had returned to their hometowns after World War II, few came back to the tiny village of Magrit, Minnesota. Irini, a nineteen year-old woman, works in the Scientific Kitchen at Margaret Mill, a cereal factory, with most of Magrit's other eligible bachelorettes. Hoping to promote his business and attract some suitors for his staff, the owner of the mill forms a women's baseball team called the Sweetwheat Sweethearts. Irini, who wields a fearsome throwing arm, strong from kneading bread dough, is the team's star center fielder and her successes, failures, and revelations on and off the ball field are endearingly recalled by her now grown daughter.

From Publishers Weekly

In the aftermath of WW II, halcyon days have not returned to Magrit, Minn., where the veterans have failed to come home. The men haven't died; they've just moved on to greener pastures, rejecting the local women, who served the war effort in the Scientific Kitchen of Margaret Mill. The mill was founded by patriarchal Henry Collins, the man responsible for Sweetwheats, the world's first puffed and sugar-coated cereal. Henry also invented Maggie Collins, a fictional Betty Crocker-type icon whose popular magazine column gained her the vote as the "most admired woman in America" in 1945. As part of a publicity campaign (and to avoid the formation of a union), Henry creates the Sweetwheats Sweethearts all-girl baseball team, convincing the mill girls that this activity will help them find husbands. The now-adult daughter of a Sweetheart recalls the team's history in a wry, witty voice that balances our revisionist present with the romanticized past. Fowler's (Sarah Canary) authentically detailed and clever novel is frequently digressive, but the digressions charm. Deadpan irony ("The Baldishes had been among the first to explore the possibilities of decorating with deer") and quirky characters worthy of Dickens raise the entertainment quotient. With fictional Magrit, Fowler depicts our nation's past as more surreal than real, while at the same time slamming her novel out of the ballpark. Major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co; 1st edition (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805047379
• ISBN-13: 978-0805047370
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,627,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A quirky, unusual, and thoroughly entertaining novel, July 29, 1998

By 

Douglas A. Greenberg (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Sweetheart Season: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

I enjoyed this book. Karen Joy Fowler has written a novel that marks out a genre all its own, as it is not quite an "historical novel," not quite science fiction, not quite feminist fiction, and not quite fantasy. It succeeds in being imaginative, politically astute, and historically informative, however, as Ms. Fowler uses the events of the story as a vehicle for including endless anecdotes, "fun facts," and asides that reveal her vast and intricate knowledge of U.S. political and social history. There's even a plethora of "homemaker tips" included, for good measure. The plot is not the point here; in this novel, the "journey is the reward," as each and every page includes verbal gems and incisive bits of social commentary and are endlessly engrossing and enlightening.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ironic, knowing, thoroughly enjoyable, August 25, 2000

By 

Richard R. Horton (Webster Groves, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sweetheart Season: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

The Sweetheart Season concerns a small town in northern Minnesota, Magrit, home to a grain mill and an associated cereal business. It is set in 1947. The viewpoint character is Irini Doyle, though the story is told in the "voice" of her daughter, retelling Irini's story from a present day perspective. Irini lives with her alcoholic father (her mother is dead), who is a research chemist at the cereal company. Irini works in the Research Kitchen of the cereal company. The other characters are her co-workers (all women) in the Kitchen, as well as the company founder, his wife, and his grandson, and a few other local women.

The main action of the novel revolves somewhat loosely around a promotional scheme of the founder: the girls at the company form a baseball team, which barnstorms through Minnesota and Wisconsin, purportedly demonstrating the nutritive benefits of the company's cereal by their success. Several other narrative threads are woven into the story: the writing of a continuing promotional kitchen/life advice column by the fictional Maggie Collins, a sort of Betty Crocker-type spokesperson for the cereal company; the antagonism between the former residents of Upper Magrit (submerged to make the mill) and Lower Magrit (where everyone now lives); the involvement of the mill owner's wife with Gandhi and the Indian independence movement; the efforts of the local women to find love and husbands in a town left nearly male-free by the war; and a mysterious (young, male) visitor to Magrit. All of these threads are well-integrated with the novel's theme, as I read it: essentially: the nascent "Women's Liberation" movement, though that over-simplifies: but the focus on the "Kitchen", yet in the context of women who are all working, and playing a nominally male sport, combined with the ironic voice of the present day narrator, and the ironic-in-this-context quotes from Maggie Collins' women's magazine advice column, quite nicely merge to make simple, true, statements about the position of women in 1947, and in our time.

The female characters are very well drawn, and almost invariably engaging. A couple of the male characters come off as ciphers, but the portraits of Irini's father, and of old Henry Collins, the mill owner, are very good. Fowler's prose is clean and elegant. Her narrative voice is a delight: ironic, affectionate, knowing, often very funny. One brief quote, from one of Maggie Collins' advice columns, meant to be read in the context of the decision to form a baseball team: "Polls have recently confirmed what has long been suspected; most men do not want brainy women. Stewardesses have turned out to be that occupation blessed most often with marriage. The key elements appear to be uniforms and travel."

I wouldn't rank The Sweetheart Season quite as highly as Fowler's first novel, Sarah Canary. At times the usually wonderfully controlled ironic voice turns a little shrill. At times she drives home a point unnecessarily: it is sufficient to show us the evidence, or to leave an ironic statement alone for the reader to interpret. Also, I was completely unable to believe the resolution of one of the plot threads. However, the book as a whole is thoroughly enjoyable, and says a lot of worthwhile things about the place of women in our society, especially about how (and, I suppose, why) it changed in the years during and after World War II.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great summer read!, June 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Sweetheart Season: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

I truly enjoyed this book, and feel that it would have made it as an Oprah book club selection if only there were more suffering in it. It was well written, and the characters were engaging. Take it to the beach!