She Treads Softly: Marrying the Ketchups

Thursday, April 14, 2022

Marrying the Ketchups

Marrying the Ketchups by Jennifer Close
4/26/22; 320 pages
Knopf Doubleday

Marrying the Ketchups by Jennifer Close is a recommended family drama.

The Sullivans are a Chicago restaurant family who are all under crisis. Bud, the patriarch and founder of JP Sullivan’s is thrilled when the Cubs win the world series and then he dies 23 minutes later. Adding to their distress is Trump being elected president, and concern about the family matriarch Rose, who is in an assisted living facility. The novel focuses on Bud's three grandchildren. Gretchen, a lead singer for a 90's cover band is reassessing the direction her life is taking after a breakup and heads home. Her older sister, Jane is sure her husband is having an affair and is questioning her entitled lifestyle and her marriage. Their cousin Teddy is the manager who would like to take over JP Sullivans and is wondering why his ex keeps showing up at the restaurant.

Marrying the Ketchups is a very character-driven novel which requires that the characters all be portrayed as realistic and unique individuals, which Close does very well. Readers will be interested in following their lives and will feel invested in what happens to them. The characters all experience growth as they adapt to the changes they encounter along the way. The situations and problems all the characters are experiencing are basically commonplace occurrences. Family dynamics, transitions, and grief all play a large role in the novel. The writing shines in the depiction of the characters.

The plot is rather slow paced without a whole lot of drama aside from the normal family interactions. Don't expect a huge twist or surprise. Much of your enjoyment may hinge on how much you enjoy family dramas and, more predominately, how much very polarizing political talk you can accept in a novel. Unless you are writing historical fiction this dates the novel immediately as occurring during a specific time period. There are pros and cons to this and generally I caution an author to keep their ardent personal political/social views to themselves as it diminishes and dates the novel. Other than the immediate division the political aspects take, Marrying the Ketchups is an engaging examination of a family.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Knopf Doubleday.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.