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Ring On Deli
A novel about supermarkets and democracy.
Brothers Ray and Patrick Markham live in Pennacook, Massachusetts, a despairing former mill town plagued by feral boars. It’s the type of place where streets are named for scoundrel governors and lesser Monopoly properties, where even Dr. Chong, the high-school principal, can’t bear to mingle with the locals in her free time.
Ray serves as Patrick’s legal guardian. He spends his days on the Bounty Bag deli line, making a mean meatball sandwich, critiquing Muscles Carbonara’s obscenely suggestive deal flyers, and studiously ducking any thought of his future. But Ray’s tick-like comfort in the static here and now is wildly disrupted when Patrick runs away and a greedy board of directors fires Angie Martini, Bounty Bag’s great-hearted CEO, turning Bounty Bag upside down with worker protests.
Dr. Chong has troubles of her own. She’s on a longshot campaign for a tax-cap override to fund a less-carcinogenic building for Andrew Johnson Memorial High School. But as Election Day nears, the meltdown at Bounty Bag threatens to gut her already shoestring tax base.
Patrick, meanwhile, has fallen into a scam targeting Ray’s own deli. Things look bleak—until he lucks into the classroom of the dying Mr. Grant, whose demanding history class gets him thinking more deeply, about Pennacook, Bounty Bag, and his own past and future.
Brothers Ray and Patrick Markham live in Pennacook, Massachusetts, a despairing former mill town plagued by feral boars. It’s the type of place where streets are named for scoundrel governors and lesser Monopoly properties, where even Dr. Chong, the high-school principal, can’t bear to mingle with the locals in her free time.
Ray serves as Patrick’s legal guardian. He spends his days on the Bounty Bag deli line, making a mean meatball sandwich, critiquing Muscles Carbonara’s obscenely suggestive deal flyers, and studiously ducking any thought of his future. But Ray’s tick-like comfort in the static here and now is wildly disrupted when Patrick runs away and a greedy board of directors fires Angie Martini, Bounty Bag’s great-hearted CEO, turning Bounty Bag upside down with worker protests.
Dr. Chong has troubles of her own. She’s on a longshot campaign for a tax-cap override to fund a less-carcinogenic building for Andrew Johnson Memorial High School. But as Election Day nears, the meltdown at Bounty Bag threatens to gut her already shoestring tax base.
Patrick, meanwhile, has fallen into a scam targeting Ray’s own deli. Things look bleak—until he lucks into the classroom of the dying Mr. Grant, whose demanding history class gets him thinking more deeply, about Pennacook, Bounty Bag, and his own past and future.
280 pages, Paperback
Published July 17, 2020
4 people are currently reading
4446 people want to read
About the author
Eric Giroux
4 books28 followersEric Giroux is the author of the novels ZODIAC PETS, which won an NYC Big Book Award, and RING ON DELI, which won the National Indie Excellence Award for Comedy and a Readers' Favorite award. His fiction writing has received support from Vermont Studio Center and Millay Arts. A graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard College, he is a senior counsel for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and lives near Boston with his family.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
June 6, 2020
Set in the fictional town of Pennacook, Massachusetts, Eric Giroux’s Ring On Deli is the story of Bounty Bag supermarket workers coming together to protest when their beloved CEO is ousted. With Dickensian characters like Toothless Mary, The Alfredo, and Muscles Carbonara, Ring On Deli is wonderfully eccentric and kooky, a rich and funny satire with a big heart. If you’re looking for great humorous writing or you just want to learn how to make the perfect sandwich, Ring On Deli is for you.
July 5, 2020
Ring on Deli is a rara avis of the current literary scene. Here is a well-built narrative, with a solid cast of characters that add human depth, texture, and color to a story about complex local -and national- issues such as capitalism, education, local government, even pest control! A story that makes you think, laugh, worry, and cheer. Ring on Deli, although satirical in spirit points to real, current concerns. Eric Giroux has hit the nail on the head with his style: a bit of John Irving to weave the narrative, a bit of Philip Roth for dark humor, and a bit of DBC Pierre for freshness, like cilantro. Using satire to sway opinion is as old as literature itself. From Medieval texts to current opinion journalism, through Voltaire and Swift, all have relied heavily on satire to avoid censorship and inquisition (both real and figurative). Ring on Deli is a brilliant read that I recommend without reservations.
May 27, 2020
“There is no Frigate like a Book / To take us Lands away.”Those lines were written in a very different time, yet the wisdom of that 19th century poem holds true here in the 21st thanks, in no small measure, to novels like Ring On Deli, the staggeringly good debut from Eric Giroux. Speed and maneuverability are a frigate’s distinguishing characteristics. Though outgunned by larger capital ships, frigates are well suited for combat in the littorals where they can outperform, when skillfully captained, by traversing shoals that would doom a larger vessel, thus exploiting unexpected vectors of attack and gaining strategic advantage. Giroux is master and commander par excellence. Case in point- a particularly touching moment midway through Ring On Deli where a mother urges a son to memorizes the Belle of Amherst’s previously quoted lines. In less skillful hands this scene would spell disaster, tending toward either the hyper sentimental or the insufferably pretentious. Instead it shines- an urgent and intimate moment between two souls; a mother teaching a son how to swim against a chaotic tide. It is one of my favorite moments in the book. There is so much to love about Ring On Deli. It is hilarious, smart, tragic, and (I think) ultimately hopeful. All good things. Best of all, perhaps, is Giroux’s sense of the American condition outside the metropoleis. Ring On Deli artfully expresses deep anxiety about technological and societal changes manifested through automation, AI, municipal taxes/taxis (read the book for the joke!) and political machinations. I believe future generations will regard this novel as an important cultural touchstone that expertly captures the struggles of the contemporary American small town the way Bong Joon-ho’s film Parasite distilled the essence of modern urban anxiety.
Yet Ring On Deli also feels like a novel of a different (and better) time for literature. An unfortunate trend in fiction today, mirroring selfsame tendencies in politics, is an increasingly polarized landscape. I see this polarization characterized by YA-esque lite fiction at one end and, at the other, fiction-cum-dissertation-cum-activism. Personally, I find the latter more egregious. As Angie, CEO of the Bounty Bag supermarket chain in Ring On Deli advises the novel’s protagonist: “A word of advice young man: a little less duty, a little more love.” Precisely correct. Sage wisdom for these times. Giroux defies any simple binaries. Ring On Deli is in fighting trim (weighing in comfortably under 300 pages), but a heavyweight when it comes to ideas. It is the kind of work you can move through quickly, but whose ideas linger, take root, and grow with time. In short, it is the type of book you want to return to over and over again. There is a scene in the book where the local history teacher Mr. Grant, who is teaching his final course while dying of cancer, opens a lecture by showing a chart comparing U.S. GDP and marginal rates of income and estate tax. Mr. Grant explains the technical terms in the chart, but otherwise says nothing as to what his students should make of these figures. A few moments later he takes down the chart and begins his lecture, which is unrelated to economic or fiscal policy. The students, not the teacher, need to do the heavy lifting in Mr. Grant's classroom. Ring On Deli is full of such moments. I'm still trying to put them all together. But like Mr. Grant, Giroux isn’t going to do the thinking for you, he respects you too much for that. Isn't this what all the great books do? As readers, isn't that exactly why we want to return to them again and again? Doing the work yourself is the best part and it comes without oppress of toll.
May 19, 2020
Disclaimer: I got to read the book in its late draft stages as a proofreader, and while scrolling through a Word doc and straining to find (any) typos or clunky wording should have been tedious, it was anything but. Between the wise, crackling prose and the instant character hooks, the generosity that kept the story just on the right side of wicked, and the writer's easy ability to zoom in on the smallest details and out to peel back the layers of some of society's biggest issues, the pages flew by.
What I will take with me most indelibly from the story are the writer's inside-out empathy for small towns (and their warts) and the characters, who were immediately familiar without being at all worn.
What I will take with me most indelibly from the story are the writer's inside-out empathy for small towns (and their warts) and the characters, who were immediately familiar without being at all worn.
May 26, 2020
Essential reading about an essential worker
We’ve all been thinking a lot lately about the hard work and trying conditions of our grocery store workers. While not related to the current Covid-19 crisis, Giroux’s novel, Ring On Deli, dives into the world a regional grocery store chain, its community, and most importantly a young man who works there. Part organized labor Ramon a clef, part family drama, Giroux deftly captures the lingering tensions and trials of working-class New England. You won’t regret spending some time with Ray and the other Bounty Bag employees in Pennacook, MA. Giroux’s wry humor, astute observations, and gift for language draw you in and illuminate Ray’s struggles to care for his brother and himself in a world that rarely cuts him a break.
We’ve all been thinking a lot lately about the hard work and trying conditions of our grocery store workers. While not related to the current Covid-19 crisis, Giroux’s novel, Ring On Deli, dives into the world a regional grocery store chain, its community, and most importantly a young man who works there. Part organized labor Ramon a clef, part family drama, Giroux deftly captures the lingering tensions and trials of working-class New England. You won’t regret spending some time with Ray and the other Bounty Bag employees in Pennacook, MA. Giroux’s wry humor, astute observations, and gift for language draw you in and illuminate Ray’s struggles to care for his brother and himself in a world that rarely cuts him a break.
July 5, 2020
In Pennacook, MA, Eric Giroux has created a town that feels both absurdly comical and deeply familiar if you have ever spent time in the less cosmopolitan parts of New England. The people of Pennacook, exemplified by brothers Ray and Patrick Markham are struggling, flawed, and ultimately, winningly committed to preserving the things that matter. The characters are well drawn and endearing, even when they are making some very bad choices. The final fight to save the local supermarket serves as a great reminder of what it means to be part of a community, whether that’s a town, or a school, or a workplace. Without being treacly or preachy, Ring on Deli ends up revealing some truth about growing up, standing up and all the other good lessons we’re supposed to get along the way.
July 20, 2020
Ring On Deli is the story of contemporary American Democracy as it is experienced--locally. The small New England town of Pennecook is home to unique, relatable, and authentically human characters and settings. Giroux's writing is linguistically sharp, with just enough absurdity and satire to ground underlying tragedy in humor. I haven’t marked so many pages with phrases to come back to since reading The Sellout.
June 11, 2020
Where's the beef? At the deli, Eric Giroux's Ring On Deli. Like George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara, Ring On Deli comically dissects the interplay between family, business and society. With the addition of wild boars. Lots of wild boars. A fantastic read!
June 11, 2020
Ring On Deli has all the right ingredients. Heartfelt yet hilarious, warm but not fuzzy, this book is like that monster roast beef sandwich you never knew you needed until after taking that first delicious bite.
June 21, 2020
enjoyed this book.
I feel like i've come to know penacook. the quirky milieu giroux pens in his debut novel reminds me much of my own hometown.
his prose is in the tradition of irving or perhaps tom robbins, two authors whom i admire greatly.
looking forward to more work from this one
I feel like i've come to know penacook. the quirky milieu giroux pens in his debut novel reminds me much of my own hometown.
his prose is in the tradition of irving or perhaps tom robbins, two authors whom i admire greatly.
looking forward to more work from this one
June 9, 2020
Great and timely read, it left me hungry for more!
I can't wait for the follow- up.
I can't wait for the follow- up.
June 28, 2020
Reading Ring On Deli is like having a most realistic dream – an adventure where you constantly walk on the edge of the real and the surreal, questioning them, confusing them, and eventually navigating them. When I first met the characters named “Toothless Mary,” “The Alfredo,” and “Muscles Carbonara,” I anxiously looked for the context, for their “real names,” and upon finding none, I learned to accept these names as is. Similarly, when the boars that roamed across Pennacook first appeared, I rubbed my eyes making sure I read it right and tried to decipher whether they were a real part of the story or just a metaphor, until gradually I witnessed them disrupting people’s lives, being hunted down, and eventually--minor spoiler alert--gotten made into ribs. As such, a vertigo seems to be hanging over Pennacook and everyone who enters, creating a mysterious fascination.
At the same time, the book – with all its novel set-ups, dream-like turns of events, and sometimes hyperbolic humor – still possesses the persuasiveness of the reality. Bounty Bag the supermarket and Andrew Johnson the high school both have characteristics unfamiliar to real life, but convincing details give them a shape so clear that they not only become real, but also create a whole universe around them parallel to our own. The various merchandises, the usually corny advertisements (by the way, I so deeply enjoyed all the wordplays that Ray indulged himself with), and the repetitive and everyday work of the employees are amusingly specific, and hence realistic. The abundance of supermarkets and the sense of security they provide were so vivid that it brought back to me memories of the first time that I entered a supermarket, in awe of “all the things the world has,” and memories of recent times when I shopped during COVID-19 and encountered empty shelves, and the sense of astonishment and anxiety that followed.
More importantly, the characters, however quirky and however caricatural, are infused with complexities and contradictions that strike the soft spots in all of us. We travel with Dr. Chong between Peannacook and Eaton through the “dark tunneling road that only she seemed to travel,” and between the decaying reality of Peannacook and a dream she built for herself of Eaton. We, then, pierce through the surface of her assertiveness, her power, and her will, and arrive at her vulnerabilities of being never enough for her father, and being constantly lonely. We wait with Ray for the return of Patrick, to whom he nervously and meticulously tried to be a parent. In his failure we feel our failures – how showing love is never easy, how even trying our best is not enough, and how in failures there is always the hope and faith for the love that will eventually be received and returned. We escape with Patrick in the overwhelming despair of youth – a time only youths themselves can see the darkness of. We remember the suffocating hopes placed on ourselves, the rules on hairstyle and manners that we were supposed to observe, and the one thing we clinged on to carry on, be it a favorite subject or an unimpressive hobby.
What touched me the most is the tenderness of the author. Even the most unsympathetic characters Giroux narrated through Ray with care and no judgment in what ultimately proved a surprisingly optimistic story about collective action and faith in self and others. Closing the book, I felt ashamed for the cynicism I held which unconsciously predicted everything that could go wrong, and felt more hopeful for what we should be able to achieve.
At the same time, the book – with all its novel set-ups, dream-like turns of events, and sometimes hyperbolic humor – still possesses the persuasiveness of the reality. Bounty Bag the supermarket and Andrew Johnson the high school both have characteristics unfamiliar to real life, but convincing details give them a shape so clear that they not only become real, but also create a whole universe around them parallel to our own. The various merchandises, the usually corny advertisements (by the way, I so deeply enjoyed all the wordplays that Ray indulged himself with), and the repetitive and everyday work of the employees are amusingly specific, and hence realistic. The abundance of supermarkets and the sense of security they provide were so vivid that it brought back to me memories of the first time that I entered a supermarket, in awe of “all the things the world has,” and memories of recent times when I shopped during COVID-19 and encountered empty shelves, and the sense of astonishment and anxiety that followed.
More importantly, the characters, however quirky and however caricatural, are infused with complexities and contradictions that strike the soft spots in all of us. We travel with Dr. Chong between Peannacook and Eaton through the “dark tunneling road that only she seemed to travel,” and between the decaying reality of Peannacook and a dream she built for herself of Eaton. We, then, pierce through the surface of her assertiveness, her power, and her will, and arrive at her vulnerabilities of being never enough for her father, and being constantly lonely. We wait with Ray for the return of Patrick, to whom he nervously and meticulously tried to be a parent. In his failure we feel our failures – how showing love is never easy, how even trying our best is not enough, and how in failures there is always the hope and faith for the love that will eventually be received and returned. We escape with Patrick in the overwhelming despair of youth – a time only youths themselves can see the darkness of. We remember the suffocating hopes placed on ourselves, the rules on hairstyle and manners that we were supposed to observe, and the one thing we clinged on to carry on, be it a favorite subject or an unimpressive hobby.
What touched me the most is the tenderness of the author. Even the most unsympathetic characters Giroux narrated through Ray with care and no judgment in what ultimately proved a surprisingly optimistic story about collective action and faith in self and others. Closing the book, I felt ashamed for the cynicism I held which unconsciously predicted everything that could go wrong, and felt more hopeful for what we should be able to achieve.
July 22, 2020
Rings true. And right on time.
Ring On Deli is a fantastic ride. It's also a funny, big-hearted parable. Eric Giroux reminded me how we got here as a country by tracing one quirky town's descent into chaos — imperceptibly at first, then with dizzying hilarity.
These are dark days for satire. How do you top the news? It'd be funny if it weren't so serious. Giroux found a way to break through, holding up a mirror to our times cracked enough to be both funny and serious. Take a John Irving coming-of-age tale, shade it with the dark hues of Nicholson Baker and spike it with the flagrant absurdity of Donald Antrim and you get something like Ring On Deli.
Giroux's Pennacook starts out as a very familiar sort of nearly defunct small town, plus a handful of marauding boars. Its residents, a/k/a Pennies, scheme to make sense of their disaffection but don't add up to a dollar. Never punching down, Giroux takes a gentle tone to their foibles and failures.
Pennacook's unlikely savior works the sandwich counter at the supermarket. (It's based on the true history of the Market Basket chain I knew and loved.) You wouldn’t say Ray Markham had the makings of a hero. Nah — you'd say "grinder" or "sub" because that's the authentic northern Mass. vernacular. But when Ray finally gets what's going on in his store, he launches into action.
The scales fell from Ray's eyes like they have from mine. America's not the self-perfecting union described in our history books, it's a war of all against all unfolding every day. Now how do we fix it? With plenty of mayo, and solidarity.
Ring On Deli is a fantastic ride. It's also a funny, big-hearted parable. Eric Giroux reminded me how we got here as a country by tracing one quirky town's descent into chaos — imperceptibly at first, then with dizzying hilarity.
These are dark days for satire. How do you top the news? It'd be funny if it weren't so serious. Giroux found a way to break through, holding up a mirror to our times cracked enough to be both funny and serious. Take a John Irving coming-of-age tale, shade it with the dark hues of Nicholson Baker and spike it with the flagrant absurdity of Donald Antrim and you get something like Ring On Deli.
Giroux's Pennacook starts out as a very familiar sort of nearly defunct small town, plus a handful of marauding boars. Its residents, a/k/a Pennies, scheme to make sense of their disaffection but don't add up to a dollar. Never punching down, Giroux takes a gentle tone to their foibles and failures.
Pennacook's unlikely savior works the sandwich counter at the supermarket. (It's based on the true history of the Market Basket chain I knew and loved.) You wouldn’t say Ray Markham had the makings of a hero. Nah — you'd say "grinder" or "sub" because that's the authentic northern Mass. vernacular. But when Ray finally gets what's going on in his store, he launches into action.
The scales fell from Ray's eyes like they have from mine. America's not the self-perfecting union described in our history books, it's a war of all against all unfolding every day. Now how do we fix it? With plenty of mayo, and solidarity.
September 8, 2020
All good fiction feels lived in - the characters come alive in your head and you can imagine not just the words on the page, but their lives continuing on. The characters in Ring On aren’t just written, they live. Page by page, you become as invested in their hopes, dreams, successes and failures as they are... sometimes even moreso.
At the same time, too much detail in the service of reality can become dry and uninteresting. That never happens in the world of Pennacook because of the wit and humor throughout. I often found myself chuckling at a particularly clever word phrase or line long after reading it.
Clearly a book of thoughts, it doesn’t get drowned by them. Philosophy is discussed but never dwelled on. Show, don’t tell, which only makes the themes resonate even stronger.
The almost manic second half is especially fascinating. All the storylines and people trend increasingly towards each other to a rewarding conclusion that is still surprising.
I won’t soon forget the world created here. This is a wonderful book, and you should read it for yourself.
At the same time, too much detail in the service of reality can become dry and uninteresting. That never happens in the world of Pennacook because of the wit and humor throughout. I often found myself chuckling at a particularly clever word phrase or line long after reading it.
Clearly a book of thoughts, it doesn’t get drowned by them. Philosophy is discussed but never dwelled on. Show, don’t tell, which only makes the themes resonate even stronger.
The almost manic second half is especially fascinating. All the storylines and people trend increasingly towards each other to a rewarding conclusion that is still surprising.
I won’t soon forget the world created here. This is a wonderful book, and you should read it for yourself.
July 21, 2020
Eric Giroux’s Ring on Deli is an original. It has lovable and hateable characters with pressing problems in need of solving. But there’s a lot more going on. The humor is sometimes madcap, sometimes dark. It often involves wordplay and abstruse allusions in a way that reminded me of Joyce, but you don’t have to get them to enjoy the book. References to American literature, especially Melville, also sparkle along the way. The author loves local histories of all kinds.You will learn more about the inner workings of a grocery store than you possessed before. Workers work out a way to defeat their greedy overlords. It’s a generous-hearted, rollicking ride.
September 12, 2020
A warm and humorous story of two brothers who find themselves trying to construct a life after the loss of their parents and a painful childhood in the hardscrabble, not-quite-hopeless, and slightly zany New England town of Pennacook. Ray finds a foothold of security behind the deli counter of the local supermarket, but his work routine can't insulate him from his younger brother Patrick's rejection of that life or the forces of American capitalism and class that erupt in his store. Giroux's book cares deeply about the complicated history that made this strange and truly American town, and cares even more deeply about Ray, Patrick, and the other "Pennies" trying to put together full and hopeful lives.
June 21, 2020
I listened to the audio book and I loved it! I was drawn right into the town of Pennacook and looked forward to getting onto the elliptical so that I could return. The narration is clear with subtle character voicing and warm humor. There are a lot of great insights although, as I made a sandwich today, I realized that I have to go back and review the proper layering of ingredients to avoid a soggy sub. I have listened to hundreds of audio books and this is among the best!
August 18, 2020
A love song for the dysfunctional town of Billerica, Massachusetts, part of the backwater of the Commonwealth called the Merrimack Valley, "Ring on Deli" is no longer just a sticker one might find on a cellophane-wrapped sub sandwich in the same town, but Eric Giroux's funny and insightful debut novel about this uncelebrated working-class world. For those nostalgic for Lums Restaurant, Purity Supreme, and tacky Chinese-food joints, or for anyone curious how such an untouched-by-time community could still exist just a stone's throw from Big Pharma Cantabrigia and gentrifying Boston, Ring on Deli provides all the answers. Rich with characters, stuffed with Massholes, and with witty humor throughout, the book is a movable feast! Just don't wolf down too many Pu Pu Platters ... bravo, Mr. Giroux!
August 25, 2020
Ring On Deli is a warm, funny, heartfelt tale about Ray and Patrick Markham, two New England brothers struggling to make sense of the world after the deaths of their parents. They are outsiders in many ways, having resettled in Pennacook, a neglected Massachusetts mill town held afloat seemingly solely by the humane management of its Bounty Bag grocery store, where Ray works in the deli. When Patrick runs away from home and dynastic feuding threatens Bounty Bag’s stability, Ray is left to manage the swelling discontent by himself. Giroux’s prose leaves no stone unturned, analyzing the state of democracy, modern English usage, Chinese restaurants, race relations, and even American barbeque as he surveys the changing lives of Pennies with a wry, big-hearted gaze.
October 6, 2021
A lot of other reviewers have mentioned the characters. I usually dislike sad-sack archetypes. In, Ring on Deli, however, the characters are balanced, real people. Though they've been hit with tragedy or made their own bad decisions, they also have redeeming qualities and I really did care about what happened to them. Chesley is the closest to a one-dimensional, but, even for him, there is a reason to think of him as having the normal mix of human desires and foibles and is not merely a cartoon villain.
The comedic touches are light and very wry. These were just enough to keep the book fun and optimistic, rather than getting stuck in the difficulty of a town stuck and declining.
The comedic touches are light and very wry. These were just enough to keep the book fun and optimistic, rather than getting stuck in the difficulty of a town stuck and declining.
August 23, 2020
This is a wacky book with timely topics. I enjoyed the local story of Pennacook (i.e., Billerica, Mass) and the Market Basket boycott. Although it’s the author’s first book, he does a good job of weaving together the intertwined stories of the grocery store boycott and the tax override for a new school. I even had to look up a few vocabulary words, which is a must for me to consider the book well written. I’m looking forward to watching the author develop his style over time!
October 30, 2020
Ring On Deli is a fun read that takes on heady social issues and presents them in a setting that feels surreal yet instantly relatable. Bathed in humor and insightful observations, the book entertains with its charming characters (this means you, chain-smoking, dumpster-shopping Toothless Mary) and embrace of community and the power of collective action. It is a big-hearted book that gets you thinking—a must-read!
August 12, 2020
Ring On Deli is a fun read filled with quirky characters in amusing yet poignant circumstances. The author has a knack for describing those characters and circumstances in a way that is both entertaining and thought-provoking, and this knack certainly applies to his description of the setting -- the fictional town of Pennacook -- which is just as lively and lovable as his other characters.
August 19, 2020
Witty, Humorous, and Great Characters!
I loved this book! Giroux is an excellent writer, and his upbeat sense of humor shines through in the ways he describes the characters and the fictional town of Pennacook. It reminded me of the Confederacy of Dunces and Catch-22; two of my favorites. It is a great read, a great story, and I am already looking forward to Giroux's next novel.
I loved this book! Giroux is an excellent writer, and his upbeat sense of humor shines through in the ways he describes the characters and the fictional town of Pennacook. It reminded me of the Confederacy of Dunces and Catch-22; two of my favorites. It is a great read, a great story, and I am already looking forward to Giroux's next novel.
January 5, 2023
A fascinating look at Market Basket and a thoroughly enjoyable read!
July 31, 2024
Probably the best novel ever written by a senior counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission? Can't say, I haven't read his other one. But it got the job done, which was to distract me for a few hours this week, and I snort/laughed at the line about a juice bar/strip joint in working-class Pennacook, Mass., occasionally being "mistaken for a French restaurant on account of the sign on its mansard roof reading 'Mon Amateur Night.'"
Two brothers, originally from a well-off suburb, orphaned and living in a Pennacook trailer: the older one, in his 20s and a rising star in a supermarket deli department; the younger, a high schooler who, although a good student when he wants to be, has chosen the path of random misdemeanors and amusingly destructive pranks. The supermarket is the main focus, and Giroux describes the place, its employees and their workdays so well that I'll be thinking about it every time I set foot in a grocery store for a while. The rest of the town is nicely depicted, too, but it turns out the backdrops are more interesting than the leads. Unless you (a) spent some formative years in the retail food biz, or (b) were a specific kind of teenage underachiever, or (c) were riveted by the family civil war that rocked the Market Basket grocery chain in New England starting in the '90s and thought it needed to be memorialized in fiction, you might want to read something else.
Two brothers, originally from a well-off suburb, orphaned and living in a Pennacook trailer: the older one, in his 20s and a rising star in a supermarket deli department; the younger, a high schooler who, although a good student when he wants to be, has chosen the path of random misdemeanors and amusingly destructive pranks. The supermarket is the main focus, and Giroux describes the place, its employees and their workdays so well that I'll be thinking about it every time I set foot in a grocery store for a while. The rest of the town is nicely depicted, too, but it turns out the backdrops are more interesting than the leads. Unless you (a) spent some formative years in the retail food biz, or (b) were a specific kind of teenage underachiever, or (c) were riveted by the family civil war that rocked the Market Basket grocery chain in New England starting in the '90s and thought it needed to be memorialized in fiction, you might want to read something else.
June 8, 2021
I was drawn to the title,“Ring on Deli” because, in the days before supermarket scanners, employees relied on little stickers bearing this phrase to know whether specialty food items should be rung up as deli items or general grocery purchases. Having worked part-time at a supermarket while in high school, I was curious about the story.
The book is a fictionalized account of the messy history of the Market Basket chain from Massachusetts, (here referred to as “Bounty Bag”), where two factions of the founder’s family battle over the company’s mission statement; one side demanding more payouts for shareholders, the other determined to continue the long-term commitment to fair wages and good benefits.
The book is funny and heart-warming, following the story of deli-man Ray, who escaped a miserable childhood and wants nothing more than a stable job and a decent home for himself and his younger brother, Patrick. He finds his salvation at Bounty Bag, where he serves as a loyal and enthusiastic employee, but the corporate clashes eventually disturb his safe and happy existence.
I liked the book and the characters, along with the author’s skill with words, but it couldn’t hold my attention. I ended up speed reading a chunk of the last quarter of the book.
The book is a fictionalized account of the messy history of the Market Basket chain from Massachusetts, (here referred to as “Bounty Bag”), where two factions of the founder’s family battle over the company’s mission statement; one side demanding more payouts for shareholders, the other determined to continue the long-term commitment to fair wages and good benefits.
The book is funny and heart-warming, following the story of deli-man Ray, who escaped a miserable childhood and wants nothing more than a stable job and a decent home for himself and his younger brother, Patrick. He finds his salvation at Bounty Bag, where he serves as a loyal and enthusiastic employee, but the corporate clashes eventually disturb his safe and happy existence.
I liked the book and the characters, along with the author’s skill with words, but it couldn’t hold my attention. I ended up speed reading a chunk of the last quarter of the book.
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