Persian Pickle Club (Dallas)

The Persian Pickle Club 
Sandra Dallas, 1995
St. Martin's Press
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312147013


Summary 
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. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—June 11, 1939
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., University of Denver
• Awards—numerous, see below
• Currently—lives in Denver, Colorado, USA

Award-winning author Sandra Dallas was dubbed “a quintessential American voice” by Jane Smiley, in Vogue magazine.  Sandra’s novels with their themes of loyalty, friendship, and human dignity have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and have been optioned for films.

A journalism graduate of the University of Denver, Sandra began her writing career as a reporter with Business Week. A staff member for twenty-five years (and the magazine’s first female bureau chief,) she covered the Rocky Mountain region, writing about everything from penny-stock scandals to hard-rock mining, western energy development to contemporary polygamy. Many of her experiences have been incorporated into her novels.

While a reporter, she began writing the first of ten nonfiction books. They include Sacred Paint, which won the National Cowboy Hall of Fame Western Heritage Wrangler Award, and The Quilt That Walked to Golden, recipient of the Independent Publishers Assn. Benjamin Franklin Award.

Turning to fiction in 1990, Sandra has published eight novels. She is the recipient of the Women Writing the West Willa Award for New Mercies, and two-time winner of the Western Writers of America Spur Award, for The Chili Queen and Tallgrass. In addition, she was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, the Mountain and Plains Booksellers Assn. Award, and a four-time finalist for the Women Writing the West Willa Award.

The mother of two daughters—Dana is an attorney in New Orleans and Povy is a photographer in Golden, Colorado— Sandra lives in Denver with her husband, Bob.

Her Own Words: 
• Because of my interest in the West—I wrote nine nonfiction books about the West before I turned to fiction—I’m a sucker for women’s journals of the westward movement. I wanted The Diary of Mattie Spenser to have the elements of a novel but to read as much like a 19th century journal as possible. Mattie is a woman of her time, not a current-day heroine dressed in a long skirt, and the language is faithful to the Civil War era.

• I added dialogue to keep the diary entries from being too stilted for contemporary readers. Making the diary believable has had an unforeseen consequence: Many readers believe it is an actual journal. They’ve asked where the diary is kept and what happened to the characters after the journal ended. One reader accused me of rewriting some of Mattie’s entries because she recognized my style. Another sent me a copy of an early Denver photograph, asking if the man in the picture was one of the characters in the book. (Author bio from the author's website.)

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Book Reviews
Out of [a] rather threadbare plot, Sandra Dallas manages to assemble a colorful exploration of Depression-era Kansas and the meaning of friendship.... [T]he members of the Persian Pickle Club turn out to be an engaging bunch, especially given Ms. Dallas's knack for capturing the quirky details of their lives.
New York Times Book Review

Affecting.... A book about how times can never be so hard that they can't be eased when people come together.
Denver Post

This entertaining second novel from the author of the well-received Buster Midnight's Cafe could be a sleeper. Set in Depression-era Kansas and made vivid with the narrator's humorous down-home voice, it's a story of loyalty and friendship in a women's quilting circle. Young farm wife Queenie Bean tells about the brief membership of a city girl named Rita, whose boredom with country living and aspirations to be an investigative reporter lead her to unearth secrets in the close-knit group, called the Persian Pickle Club after a coveted paisley print. Queenie's desire to win Rita's friendship ("We were chickens...and Rita was a hummingbird'') clashes with her loyalty to the Pickles when Rita tries to solve the murder of a member's husband, in the process unearthing complicated relationships among the women who meet each week to quilt and read aloud to each other. The result is a simple but endearing story that depicts small-town eccentricities with affection and adds dazzle with some late-breaking surprises. Dallas hits all the right notes, combining an authentic look at the social fabric of Depression-era life with a homespun suspense story.
Publishers Weekly

Hard times in Depression-era Harveyville, Kansas, are softened by the conviviality of a weekly quilting circle called the Persian Pickle Club. Queenie Bean, the "talkingest" member of the group, narrates the novel with snappy style. Over the course of a year, during which the club experiences more sorrow than sewing, Queenie and her pals depend on one another more than ever. When Queenie forms a fast friendship with the newest "Pickle," a flashy, big-city gal named Rita, the equilibrium of the group changes, for Rita is a novice newspaper reporter intent on making a name for herself. The story Rita most wants to crack involves the mysterious death of one of the club ladies' husbands. Will secrets long stitched into the collective fabric of friendship hold? This and other suspenseful questions of small-town life will entertain readers who enjoyed Fannie Flag's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (Random, 1987), Olive Ann Burns's Cold Sassy Tree, or Dallas's first novel, Buster Midnight's Cafe. —Keddy Ann Outlaw, Harris Cty. P.L., Houston
Library Journal

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Discussion Questions
1. The Denver Post called this "A book about how times can never be so hard that they can't be eased when people come together." How do the gatherings of the Persian Pickle Club ease its member's troubles?

2. Queenie says, "It was marrying that made women appreciate other women." Grover is a nice man who listens to Queenie's fears and shares his own. What do women characters provide each other?

3. Does Rita think she is a good friend to Queenie? Is she aware of the trouble her insensitive questions cause?

4. Tom bends down and tests the dryness of the dirt, realizing that there's no way of growing crops in it, but then turns up the road, apparently happy. How is this ability to ignore disaster echoed elsewhere in the book?

5. Quilting is central to this story. How is Harveyville like a quilt? What are the patterns? What is the stitching that holds it together?

6. Tyrone, the Reverend, and his sister are the only characters in the book who loudly profess devotion to God, yet they are the most disliked members of the community How else does this book turn morality and religion on its head?

7. Rita is a different kind of woman from the other members of the club-she doesn't seem to want to empathize with anyone. Discuss how her goals and feelings differ from those of the members.

8. At the end, Rita sends a "Friendship Forever" quilt to Queenie and the club. What is Rita trying to tell the club?

9. Rita includes a card that says, "If you wonder who's responsible, I did it." Who really did do it? Does it
matter?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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