Synopses & Reviews
The fourth novel in Jerry Apps’s Ames County series, Cranberry Red brings the story into the present, portraying the challenges of agriculture in the twenty-first century.
As the novel opens, Ben Wesley has lost his job as agricultural agent for Ames County. He is soon hired as a research application specialist for Osborne University, a for-profit institution that has developed “Cranberry Red,” a new chemical that promises not only to improve cranberry crop yields but also to endow the fruits with the power to prevent heart disease, reduce brain damage from strokes, and ward off Alzheimer’s disease. Ben must promote the new product to cranberry growers in Ames County and beyond, but he worries whether the promised results are credible. Was Cranberry Red rushed to market?
When the chemical does all that the university claims it will do, Ben is relieved . . . until disturbing side effects emerge. Can he criticize Cranberry Red and safeguard farmers and consumers without losing his job, or will Ben’s honesty get him fired while his community continues to get sicker?
Review
“In a Pickle is a many-layered pleasure delivered by a master craftsman who is also, like Studs Terkel and Howard Zinn, a passionate student of the people’s history. As Apps engages us in the coming-of-age saga of the pickle factory manager Andy Meyer, this is at once a lesson in rural Wisconsin sociology, a quietly scathing indictment of factory farming, and a great read.”—John Galligan, author of The Nail Knot and The Blood Knot
Review
“In a Pickle tells this poignant story of change, family, and heartache in a nostalgic, yet unforgettable way.”—Oscar Mireles, editor of I Didn’t Know There Were Latinos in Wisconsin
Review
“In 1955, life on the nation’s traditional small family farms was on a collision course with industrialization and technology. Small cheese factories were closing, combines were replacing the threshing crew, and workhorses were put out to pasture. It also meant that farm families were facing the traumas of the future. Jerry Apps chronicles this dilemma of change through the lives of central Wisconsin farmers who existed by the sweat of their brows and the muscles in their arms. . . . In a Pickle is a story you’ll read with relish and remember forever.”—John Oncken, syndicated agriculture columnist and radio commentator
Review
“Deceptively simple, deceptively rural, Cranberry Red raises tremendous social and moral questions in the context of a good story.”—Maryo Gard Ewell, Colorado Council on the Arts
Synopsis
The fourth novel in Jerry Apps’s Ames County series, Cranberry Red brings the story into the present, portraying the challenges of agriculture in the twenty-first century.
As the novel opens, Ben Wesley has lost his job as agricultural agent for Ames County. He is soon hired as a research application specialist for Osborne University, a for-profit institution that has developed “Cranberry Red,” a new chemical that promises not only to improve cranberry crop yields but also to endow the fruits with the power to prevent heart disease, reduce brain damage from strokes, and ward off Alzheimer’s disease. Ben must promote the new product to cranberry growers in Ames County and beyond, but he worries whether the promised results are credible. Was Cranberry Red rushed to market?
When the chemical does all that the university claims it will do, Ben is relieved . . . until disturbing side effects emerge. Can he criticize Cranberry Red and safeguard farmers and consumers without losing his job, or will Ben’s honesty get him fired while his community continues to get sicker?
Synopsis
The year is 1955. Andy Meyer, a young farmer, manages the pickle factory in Link Lake, a rural town where the farms are small, the conversation is meandering, and the feeling is distinctly Midwestern. Workers sort, weigh, and dump cucumbers into huge vats where the pickles cure, providing a livelihood to local farmers. But the H. H. Harlow Pickle Company has appeared in town, using heavy-handed tactics to force family farmers to either farm the Harlow way or lose their biggest customer—and, possibly, their land. Andy, himself the owner of a half-acre pickle patch, works part-time for the Harlow Company, a conflict that places him between the family farm and the big corporation. As he sees how Harlow begins to change the rural community and the lives of its people, Andy must make personal, ethical, and life-changing decisions. Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Outstanding Book, selected by the Public Library Association
About the Author
Jerry Apps, born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, is professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of more than fifteen books, many of them on rural history and country life. His nonfiction books include Every Farm Tells a Story, Country Wisdom, When Chores Were Done, Humor from the Country, Country Ways and Country Days, One-Room Country Schools, Cheese, Breweries of Wisconsin, and Ringlingville USA. He is also the author of the historical novel The Travels of Increase Joseph. He received the 2007 Major Achievement Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Contents
Part I
1 Fred and Oscar
2 Lost Job
3 Beth Wesley
4 Local Agent Out
5 Shtogun Slogum
6 Visiting Slogum
Part II
7 Fred and Oscar
8 Phone Call
9 Dr. Sara Phillips
10 New Job?
11 Beth and Osborne University
12 Slogum's Advice
13 Conversation with Lars
14 Hailstorm
15 Cranberry Red
Part III
16 Fred and Oscar
17 Brittni Stone
The Osborne Dream
19 Business Office
20 Fourth of July
21 Gunnar Godson
22 Farm Visit
23 Business of the Year
24 Ben and Brittani
Part IV
25 Fred and Oscar
26 RFD
27 Rules
28 Promoting RFD
29 RFD News
30 Celebration Planning
31 Ames County Fair
32 Cranberry Red Meeting
33 The Day After
34 Office Problems
35 Fish Survey
36 Fishing With Lars
37 Family Cookout
38 Celebration News
Part V
39 Fred and Oscar
40 Harvest at Slogum's
41 Gunnar's Discovery
42 Budget Shortfall
43 Paul and Gloria Mayer
44 Research Problem
45 RFD Collapses
46 Ben and Dr. Phillips
47 Healthy Always Cranberries
48 County Fari Eliminated
49 Beth Wins Osborne Award
Part VI
50 Fred and Oscar
51 Phillips and the Outreach Office
52 Chris Martin
53 Secret Meeting
54 Teaching Strategies
55 Gunnar's Research
56 Brittani and Chris
57 Two Faces of Osbourne
Part VII
58 Fred and Oscar
59 Queen Selection
60 Ups and Downs
61 Cranberry One-Fifty
62 Celebration Continues
63 Anonymous Letter
64 Gus and the Tamarack River
65 Ben and Shotgun Slogum
66 Osborne Commemorative Park
67 Fallout
Afterword