I put off reading The Lager Queen of Minnesota for too long! After adoring Kitchens of the Great Midwest, I was worried my expectations were going to be too high. I shouldn’t have worried!
This story of multiple generations of Midwest women struggling through different challenges, societal and familial, was utterly absorbing. Stradal poignantly conveys the obstacles that women and people in poverty so often encounter in our society. I love how he captures that quiet stoicism, as well as the petty grievances, that seem so prevalent and familiar to the part of the country where I come from. It resulted in laughter and heartache in equal measure while reading.
“...she wouldn’t leave the legacy she desired simply through prideful public displays, like some men did. There were advantages to a low profile. It was like a man to scratch his name on the banister of history, but Helen had come to believe that it was better to be the stairs.”
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