The Persian Pickle Club

My book club picked this read otherwise I might not have ever picked it up because I probably wouldn't have even known it was out there, despite the fact that it was publised ten years ago.

Good thing I had a chance to read it. It's outside my usual preferred genre, but that didn't matter. The book is a heartfelt tale of the friendship between women in small town Kansas in the 1930's. There is something special and different between the bonds of women than men and this novel beautifully illustrates it.

The tone is right. The individual personalities of the women distinct. The way they feel about each other, complicated. What they'll do to protect one of their own, priceless.

While it doesn't make me wish to take up quilting, it does impress me to develop my own Persian Pickle Club with the remarkable women who surround me.

Be aware there are some raw themes in this book: barreness, unwed mothers, attempted rape, and murder, to name a few. But they aren't graphic and are brought in as plot points of interest to move the story along.

I only wish I'd read it when I lived in KS so I could go visit Harveyville in person.

Worth the read.

Amazon

It is the 1930s, and hard times have hit Harveyville, Kansas, where the crops are burning up, and there's not a job to be found. For Queenie Bean, a young farm wife, a highlight of each week is the gathering of the Persian Pickle Club, a group of local ladies dedicated to improving their minds, exchanging gossip, and putting their quilting skills to good use. When a new member of the club stirs up a dark secret, the women must band together to support and protect one another. In her magical, memorable novel, Sandra Dallas explores the ties that unite women through good times and bad.