Jell-O Girls : : a Family History

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Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	306.87 Ro	4-week checkout	Due 05-23-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Rowbottom, Allie	4-week checkout	Due 05-22-2024

"A memoir that braids the evolution of one of America's most iconic branding campaigns with the stirring tales of the women who lived behind its facade--told by the inheritor of their stories. In 1899, Allie Rowbottom's great-great-great-uncle bought the patent to Jell-O from its inventor for $450. The sale would turn out to be one of the most profitable business deals in American history, and the generations that followed enjoyed immense privilege--but they were also haunted by suicides, cancer, alcoholism, and mysterious ailments. More than 100 years after that deal was struck, Allie's mother Mary was diagnosed with the same incurable cancer, a disease that had also claimed her own mother's life. Determined to combat what she had come to consider the "Jell-O curse" and her looming mortality, Mary began obsessively researching her family's past, determined to understand the origins of her illness and the impact on her life of Jell-O and the traditional American values the company championed. Before she died in 2015, Mary began to send Allie boxes of her research and notes, in the hope that her daughter might write what she could not. Jell-O Girls is the liberation of that story. A gripping examination of the dark side of an iconic American product and a moving portrait of the women who lived in the shadow of its fractured fortune, Jell-O Girls is a family history, a feminist history, and a story of motherhood, love and loss. In crystalline prose, Rowbottom considers the roots of trauma not only in her own family, but in the American psyche as well, ultimately weaving a story that is deeply personal and deeply connected to the collective female experience."--Dust jacket.
In 1899, Rowbottom's great-great-great-uncle bought the patent to Jell-O from its inventor for $450. It was one of the most profitable business deals in American history, and the family enjoyed privileges-- but was also haunted by suicides, cancer, alcoholism, and mysterious ailments. Her mother, Mary Fussell, was diagnosed with incurable cancer and became determined to combat what she had come to consider the "Jell-O curse." Mary became obsessed with understanding the origins of her illness and the impact on her life of Jell-O and the traditional American values the company championed. -- adapted from jacket

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Jello Girls submitted by delaflynn on August 28, 2018, 9:26pm Extremely misleading summary on the dust jacket. There actually isn't really a "Jell-O Curse." Their tragic family story is only tangentially related to Jell-O. There may be studies done on Jell-O and patriarchy as the author alludes to in her story but she doesn't convince the reader to check it out for him/herself. The perspective of the book is that of rich white Americans who pity themselves for having too much money and not enough good sense. Unfortunately, the author and her mother blame poor parenting on patriarchy - which does nothing for combating the real evils of a patriarchal society.

Vends,Metz,z submitted by Susitha on August 2, 2019, 8:41pm Fwkvf

jkkkko;u submitted by emiwang on August 27, 2019, 1:00pm h.jl