Synopses & Reviews
"The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" introduces Evelyn Ryan, an enterprising woman who kept poverty at bay with wit, poetry, and perfect prose during the "contest era" of the 1950s and 1960s.
Stepping back into a time when fledgling advertising agencies were active partners with consumers, and everyday people saw possibility in every coupon, Terry Ryan tells how her mother kept the family afloat by writing jingles and contest entries. Mom's winning ways defied the Church, her alcoholic husband, and antiquated views of housewives. To her, flouting convention was a small price to pay when it came to securing a happy home for her six sons and four daughters. Evelyn, who would surely be a Madison Avenue executive if she were working today, composed her jingles not in the boardroom, but at the ironing board.
By entering contests wherever she found them -- TV, radio, newspapers, direct-mail ads -- Evelyn Ryan was able to win every appliance her family ever owned, not to mention cars, television sets, bicycles, watches, a jukebox, and even trips to New York, Dallas, and Switzerland. But it wasn't just the winning that was miraculous; it was the timing. If a toaster died, one was sure to arrive in the mail from a forgotten contest. Days after the bank called in the second mortgage on the house, a call came from the Dr Pepper company: Evelyn was the grand-prize winner in its national contest -- and had won enough to pay the bank.
Graced with a rare appreciation for life's inherent hilarity, Evelyn turned every financial challenge into an opportunity for fun and profit. From her frenetic supermarket shopping spree -- worth $3,000 today -- to her clever entries worthy of Erma Bombeck, Dorothy Parker, and Ogden Nash, the story of this irrepressible woman whose talents reached far beyond her formidable verbal skills is told in "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" with an infectious joy that shows how a winning spirit will triumph over the poverty of circumstance.
Review
Judith Stone O Magazine A good-natured memoir as compelling as a commercial jingle.
Review
Book of the Week People Nabs first prize in the memoir genre.
Review
"Inspirational."
-- USA Today
Review
"Unforgettable."
-- San Francisco Chronicle
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"A good-natured memoir as compelling as a commercial jingle."
-- O, The Oprah Magazine
Review
The New Yorker This plucky middle American chronicle, starring an unsinkable, relentlessly resourceful mother and her Madison Avenue-style magic, succeeds on many levels -- as a tale of family spirit triumphing over penury, as a history of mid-century American consumerism, and as a memoir about a woman who was both ahead of her time and unable to escape it.
Synopsis
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio introduces Evelyn Ryan, an enterprising woman who kept poverty at bay with wit, poetry, and perfect prose during the "contest era" of the 1950s and 1960s.
Stepping back into a time when fledgling advertising agencies were active partners with consumers, and everyday people saw possibility in every coupon, Terry Ryan tells how her mother kept the family afloat by writing jingles and contest entries. Mom's winning ways defied the Church, her alcoholic husband, and antiquated views of housewives. To her, flouting convention was a small
Synopsis
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio introduces Evelyn Ryan, an enterprising woman who kept poverty at bay with wit, poetry, and perfect prose during the "contest era" of the 1950s and 1960s. Evelyn's winning ways defied the church, her alcoholic husband, and antiquated views of housewives. To her, flouting convention was a small price to pay when it came to raising her six sons and four daughters.
Graced with a rare appreciation for life's inherent hilarity, Evelyn turned every financial challenge into an opportunity for fun and profit. The story of this irrepressible woman, whose clever entries are worthy of Erma Bombeck, Dorothy Parker, and Ogden Nash, is told by her daughter Terry with an infectious joy that shows how a winning spirit will always triumph over poverty.
About the Author
Terry Ryan, the sixth of Evelyn Ryan's ten children, was a consultant on the film adaptation of
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. She lives in San Francisco, California.
Suze Orman is the author of three consecutive
New York Times bestsellers,
The Road to Wealth, The Courage to Be Rich, and
The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom, and the national bestseller
You've Earned It, Don't Lose It. She is the personal finance editor on CNBC and the host of
The Suze Orman Show, a national CNBC-TV show that airs every weekend. She is also a contributing editor to
O The Oprah Magazine. Suze wrote, coproduced, and hosted three PBS pledge shows based on her bestselling books, which are among the most successful fundraisers in the history of public television. A new PBS special based on
The Laws of Money, the Lessons of Life premieres in 2003.
Suze has also been called a "one-woman financial-advice powerhouse" by USA Today. In 1999, she was named by Smart Money magazine to its list of the top thirty powerbrokers in the United States. Suze was recently selected as one of five distinguished recipients of the prestigious 2002 TJFR Group Business News Luminaries Award, which honors lifetime achievement in business journalism. In 2003, she was inducted into the Books for a Better Life Awards' Hall of Fame in recognition of her ongoing contributions to self-improvement. She was also profiled in Worth magazine's 100th issue as among those "who have revolutionized the way America thinks about money." Suze's popular web site, SuzeOrman.com, features, among other valuable financial information, her monthly e-newsletter.
Table of Contents
ContentsForeword by Suze Orman
Part One
1. The Contester
2. Rhyme Does Pay
3. Supermarket Spree
Part Two
4. The Sleeping Giant
5. Father of the Year
6. Too Damned Happy
7. Defiance
8. Tickle Hills
Part Three
9. Poet Laureate
10. Giant Steps
11. Name That Sandwich
Part Four
12. The Affadaisies
13. Round Robin
14. Going, Going, Gone
Part Five
15. Hell and High Water
16. Mrs. Etchie
17. Such a Thing as Destiny
Part Six
18. Rock Bottom
19. Her Weight in Gold
Epilogue: A Truckload of Birds
Afterword by Betsy Ryan