The Sweetheart Season

by Karen Joy Fowler

A funny and warm novel from the Man Booker shortlisted author of bestselling hit The Jane Austen Book Club '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.' It is 1947 and in the aftermath of World War II halcyon days have not returned to Magrit, Minnesota, where the veterans have failed to come home. The men haven't died; they've just moved onto greener pastures, rejecting the local women, who served the war effort in the Scientific Kitchen of Margaret Mill. The mill was founded by Henry Collins, the man responsible for Sweetwheats, the world's first puffed and sugar-coated cereal. As part of a publicity campaign, Henry creates the Sweetwheats Sweethearts all-girl baseball team, convincing the mill girls that this will help them find husbands. 'A joy to read' - USA Today 'A remarkable treasure - often wistful and hilarious at once ... Smart, wry, and just this side of insane' - Washington Post 'Full of sparkling wit ... In territory long ago staked out by Garrison Keillor, The Sweetheart Season reads like the best of Lake Wobegon and then some' - Philadelphia Inquirer

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Baseball, Historical, Chick Lit, Womens Fiction, 20th Century

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Karen Joy Fowler is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels and three short story collections. Her 2004 novel, The Jane Austen Book Club, spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and was a New York Times Notable Book. Fowler’s previous novel, Sister Noon, was a finalist for the 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Her debut novel, Sarah Canary, won the Commonwealth medal for best first novel by a Californian, was listed for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize as well as the Bay Area Book Reviewers Prize, and was a New York Times Notable Book. Fowler’s short story collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Award in 1999, and her collection What I Didn’t See won the World Fantasy Award in 2011. Her most recent novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, won the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and was short-listed for the 2014 Man Booker Prize. Her new novel Booth published in March 2022.

She is the co-founder of the Otherwise Award and the current president of the Clarion Foundation (also known as Clarion San Diego). Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children and seven grandchildren, live in Santa Cruz, California. Fowler also supports a chimp named Caesar who lives at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone.

Reviews

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 Manila


Dear 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

[Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. The writer obviously loved her characters, faults and all, in a way that reminded my of John Irving or Ann Tyler. The prose was clear and engaging. And the story, about a dying mill town after WW II, really gave me a sense of that time.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Would have been two stars, because the writing was decent, but I read the author interview at the back of the book and the author didn't like A League of Their Own because she thought it was "safe" and didn't touch on what the league meant to women, etc. Humph. Perhaps it's unfair of me to take off a star for that, but A League of Their Own is one of my all-time favorite movies, and the characters in the movie were so much more diverse and complex and interesting than any of the characters in The Sweetheart Season. Also the movie had a plot, unlike this book.

The writing in this book is really good and lovely, but nothing happens. It's occasionally funny, but it's not worth reading 350 pages just to get a few chuckles. There's just no interesting plot to tie the story together. The baseball was so peripheral to the story, which was horribly disappointing. The romance bits are underwhelming. The wacky townspeople and their obsession with Gandhi ended up being kind of tiresome rather than entertaining.

I feel like I wasted my time with this one. I wouldn't have finished it, except that I compulsively finish every book I start. If you want a good story about women in baseball, or women during WWII, or women in general, or baseball in general, or just a generally good story, go watch A League of Their Own.

[Jennie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried, and failed, to bond with any of the characters in this story. I should have loved it: it's set in the mid-west immediately after WWII, and there's baseball! But the story fell flat. It kept bouncing around in time, from present to past to future, back to the present again, with lots of hinting and an announcement at the beginning of the story that it was told by two liars (the narrator as well as her mother, whose story it was). There was a lot of talking about the baseball team, then flashing back to the present and too many descriptions of too many girls - after awhile it felt too much like wading through molasses and I had to give it up.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've only upgraded this from 1 star because of the competency shown in the writing style, and because it came from the same pen as the utterly brilliant We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

Man. This. Was. A. SLOG.

The blurb is completely misleading, for one thing. I thought I was picking up a novel about women from a small town in post-war America who eschew the expectation to wait for a husband to appear and form a kick-ass feminist baseball team. Whilst this does occur, to an extent, it very much takes a backseat to the main narrative. The main narrative being... fuck all.

Seriously, nothing happens in this book. There's a bit of mooning over a couple of men, there's some cooking in a communal kitchen. There's some letter writing for a fictional agony aunt in a paper and there's a weird obsession with Ghandi's India from the townspeople. The plot points are sporadic, and weak as piss. And the characters are as devoid of personality as the book is of an engaging story.

If you're thinking of reading this book then my advice would be - don't.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as light as this blue cover implies, by a long shot. This is a book that rewards the patient, the experienced. Lots of subtlety to put together. I first read it years ago and though I didn't fully appreciate it then, it stuck in my mind as something I knew I wanted to try again.

Finally found a copy and loved it, want everyone I know to be the kind of reader who loves it, and plan to reread it yet again.

Again, because it's easy to read as if it's an easy, light story. Easy to miss all the intelligence. Easy to dismiss the mystery & reveal as something tacked on, whereas actually the reveal exposes a rather horrifying bit of history. Not as horrifying as the Holocaust, but still....

I guess I'll have to try Dazzle of Day again. But not Sarah Canary, as that's just too much.

Bookdarts:
racy (?) movie, Duel in the Sun
little men called lutins
read Tagore to be a rebel among the rebellious (who are studying Gandhi's message)

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

No one else is quite like Karen Joy Fowler, who can somehow not let you know what kind of book you’re reading until near the end. This one, about members of a young women’s baseball team in 1947, starts a bit slow, then has a section that’s great, then slows back down a bit, and finally finishes strong. It’s more about the players’ relationships and misadventures than about the baseball team itself. The ending was sweet and elegiac, with an unexpected surprise that both made perfect sense and was absurdly ridiculous. So, what’s it about in a more abstract sense? Realizing that you never know which rumors are true and what everybody else is really up to. Well, that and the aftermath of World War II in middle America. And how relationships and people change over time, but maybe not as much as you think.

[Tripp]

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."

[Bonnie Tesch · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kept expecting this to get better.

[Shelby · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't hate it, I just couldnt get into it

[Vicki Turner · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was perhaps expecting too much of The Sweetheart Season, having enjoyed other titles by Karen Joy Fowler, but I did not feel that it lived up to the intriguing premise. I was well over half way though and still waiting for the the story to grip me. The narrative is quite confusing as it meanders back and forth in time, and none of the characters have much depth. There are some funny moments, and the author is always good at creating a sense of place and atmosphere. It has left me yearning to read some Fanny Flagg.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sure enjoyed being in the middle of this book, just ambling along with it.
Sure, every now and then I thought about having to suspend my disbelief about it being the daughter telling her mother's story. (Because the details she "recalled" were delicious, but she wouldn't have known the story that closely.) But I enjoyed it anyway.
I was sorry to reach the end, because it was a pleasure all along-- and also because the end wasn't especially satisfying to me.
But I really did enjoy just ambling along with it. A really nice lightweight read.

[Tobeylynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up as an ARC at the American Library Association conference, and I'm so glad to be introduced to this author. Her first novel, Sarah Canary, had been highly acclaimed, so I'm looking forward to reading that as well.

The story is a quirky look at a post-WWII small town in Minnesota. The imaginary Maggie Collins – via a popular Q&A magazine column, breakfast cereal, and radio serial – encourages a role for women that is almost impossible for the residents of Magrit to attain, as the young men have not yet returned from the war.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truly a 2.5. I struggled getting depth to many of the characters. I started this book and probably stopped for a week and totally forgot it was a story being told through the granddaughter. I figured it out at the end and even that did not make me feel better about reading it.
If you are one of those readers who truly tries to finish a book in the hope that somewhere it will redeem itself, do not waste your time. I was just glad to be done.

[Maria Longley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a sweet and gentle and funny read about a small town in the middle of nowhere that has a mill of importance, a drowned village, a women-only baseball team to promote the cereal (and to avoid them unionising), and life in 1947 with all its vagaries. It was slow-paced but there was plenty to enjoy and I liked Irini, or at least her daughter's version of her. The starry nights sounded rather splendid too. Bonkers at times but funnier for it too.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for an English class. Really made me think about the concept of home and how sometimes grief traps us there. Funny point of view in that it's narrated by the main character's daughter, who lets us know we are reading a story told by two liars. The character of Maggie Collins as a symbol for the ideal woman of the 40s and 50s (that eventually changes into something else) is interesting to examine. Laughed out loud while reading, it's a funny book

[Justine Wilkinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed with this book, having enjoyed the Jane Austen Book Club. I felt this story never really got going; I was waiting for 'something' to happen, and it never did. And then the whole Thomas Holcrow thing at the end was a bit ridiculous, like the author needed to wrap up and thought 'sod it, This will do'

[Charline · Rating 2 out of 5]

At first I really enjoyed the vibe of the book, but then the lack of coherent plot started to annoy me and when finally the "big revelation" kicked in 10 pages before the end, it was a mere disaster. I liked Magrit and its cast of characters, but it needed something more to hold it together and baseball sure was not it...

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book with a lot of humor and lot of charming characters! This story might not be for everyone, but I really enjoyed it. The year is 1947, and life in a small town revolves around the mill, its workers, its owners, and the columns of the imaginary Maggie Collins. Oh and a women's baseball team.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book surprised me by not really being what the cover advertises. It’s about growing up and it’s about 1940s America. The American Dream and it’s subsequent disappointments. Actually a very engaging novel.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

One major inaccuracy. Women actually did play for the Indianapolis Clowns and Kansas City Monarchs.

Other than that. Oh...My...God. It's like someone spent the night with me, learned all my secrets, and then gave me a gift.

[Ika Willis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an absolute dog's breakfast! I read it because I wanted some more Karen Joy Fowler after We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves but honestly, it was such a centreless mess. I did like the image of Maggie Collins as Kali, though.

[Hilary Doyle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely awful book. I have read and loved two of Karen Joy Fowler's books, but this one left me stone cold and I had to abandon it after less than 40 pages. Pointlessly meandering, with no character development and no real indication of where it was going.

[Brittany Deacon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

nothing but respect for MY karen joy fowler

[Laura Mullen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gave up after several chapters. Could not keep the numerous characters straight and did not like how the story jumped around .

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too boring. Not going to finish ever. When I find reading boring, it’s a bad book.

[Greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Karen Joy Fowler makes the story worth while with the surprise ending. Well done. An interesting history lesson on post world war II small town America, women's baseball and cooking.

[Dcf · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great read for summer!

[Nicola Stevens]

I could not give this any stars as I could not finish it, i have no idea what is going on in the story and lost interest in it fast.