Big Sausage

by Rick Krizman

Vlado Novosel, free spirit and big-hearted screwup, charms the ladies of Croatian Strawberry Hill until a surprise pregnancy yokes him into matrimony. To support his burgeoning family in Depression-era Kansas City, Vlado quits his meat packing job and opens a butcher shop with his cousin, Joe. Their efforts to share his stinky kobasa with the world continually place the hapless Vlado at odds with himself, the Catholic Church, and the women in his life. Inevitably, the cousins run afoul of the Pendergast mob, while doubts resurface about the paternity of Vlado’s beloved daughter. All along, we’re pulling for Vlado, a sausage-wielding Don Quixote, aided and abetted in his quest by a colorful cast of enablers and disablers in the Strawberry Hill community, all determined to eat, drink, and bluff their way to a better life.

Genres: Book Club

320 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 9, 2025

Reviews

[Micheal D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Big Sausage by Rick Krizman is a wildly entertaining and deeply compassionate novel that captures the messy, funny, and utterly human spirit of chasing the American dream. Through the misadventures of Vlado Novosel a sausage-wielding dreamer with more heart than luck Krizman serves up a story brimming with laughter, longing, and unexpected grace.

Set in Depression-era Kansas City’s Croatian community, the book blends humor and history with rare warmth, revealing the bonds of love, faith, and folly that make life worth living. Big Sausage is a savory, soulful triumph—richly told, wonderfully absurd, and unforgettable.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely excellent read by a first-time novelist ... by any novelist.
The author, who grew up in Kansas City, follows an immigrant Croatian and his cousin during the depression as they work their way out of the Armour meat packing plant and open their own sausage-making business called Big Sausage.
The tone of the book is human and humane as the protagonist Vlado deals with doubts about whether his child is his own, loves left behind, and the trickiness of establishing a business selling sausage across the river to the snooty upper class. The author knows the territory he writes about from the streets of Kansas City to the Catholic culture of Croatian ex-patriots. Beneath it all is a subtle humor about love, family, friends, and being Catholic. While visiting a convent to rescue his pregnant girlfriend, Vlado sees a nun and imagines that she has a ruler hidden under her habit.
The characters face some big problems but ultimately they solve them or learn to live with them. This book is loaded with quiet wisdom.

[J Quindaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great summer read. Funny and unpredictable, with a charismatic protagonist.