The Nature of Things

J. Ryan Stradal's popular first novel was called Kitchens of the Great Midwest . This second one might well have been called Kitchens of the Great Midwest With Pie and Beer, but the title-pickers decided on the more original The Lager Queen of Minnesota .  The story centers around three women, sisters Edith and Helen and Edith's granddaughter, Diana. They are part of an incredibly bland Midwestern family, and, frankly, I had a hard time distinguishing between the three as I read their stories. I kept getting them all mixed up. The story begins with Edith and Helen growing up together. Edith early on showed an affinity for baking pies. Helen was fascinated with beer. For her sixteenth birthday, all Helen asked for was a bottle of beer. When she opened her gift from her parents and found a bottle of root beer, she had a tantrum and threw the bottle through the kitchen window. Later in the day, Edith, who by then was 21 and married, went and bought four bottles of beer of four di...

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal My rating: 4 of 5 stars Fans of reality TV might possibly recognize the name of the author. J. Ryan Stradal is the producer of some of the more popular entries in that genre, shows like "Ice Road Truckers" and "Deadliest Catch," both of which my husband has watched over the years. I'm not a fan of reality TV myself; I prefer my TV shows to be unreal. I am a fan, though, of Stradal's writing. Kitchens of the Great Midwest is his first novel and it is a winner. He shows great originality and a sure touch for the development of characters and a character-driven plot. The structure of this book reminds me very much of another book that I dearly loved, Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge . As in Olive , we get to know the main character of Kitchens by seeing her through the eyes of other characters. Plus, the physical descriptions of both Olive and Eva Thorvald, the main character here, are somewhat similar....