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Marrying the Ketchups
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
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Marrying the Ketchups
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Publisher's Summary
An irresistible comedy of manners about three generations of a Chicagorestaurant family and the deep-fried, beer-battered, cream cheese-frosted love that feeds them all—from the best-selling author of Girls in White Dresses
“Laugh-out-loud funny, and deeply resonant to our times. I was so happy to be in the Sullivan family’s Chicago bar, caught in the swirl of three generations of grudges, love affairs and fraught personal decisions.”
—Ann Napolitano, best-selling author of Dear Edward
Here are the three things the Sullivan family knows to be true: the Chicago Cubs will always be the underdogs; historical progress is inevitable; and their grandfather, Bud, founder of JP Sullivan’s, will always make the best burgers in Oak Park. But when, over the course of three strange months, the Cubs win the World Series, Trump is elected president, and Bud drops dead, suddenly everyone in the family finds themselves doubting all they hold dear.
Take Gretchen for example, lead singer for a ’90s cover band who has been flirting with fame for a decade but is beginning to wonder if she’s too old to be chasing a childish dream. Or Jane, Gretchen’s older sister, who is starting to suspect that her fitness-obsessed husband who hides the screen of his phone isn’t always “working late.” And then there’s Teddy, their steadfast, unfailingly good cousin, nursing heartbreak and confusion because the guy who dumped him keeps showing up for lunch at JP Sullivan’s where Teddy is the manager. How can any of them be expected to make the right decisions when the world feels sideways—and the bartender at JP Sullivan’s makes such strong cocktails?
Outrageously funny and wickedly astute, Marrying the Ketchups is a delicious confection by one of our most beloved authors.
What the critics say
“Riveting… [Close has] a knack…of inventing story lines that have the feel of extremely good gossip told across a hightop table over a beer with an old friend. Always, I wanted to stay for another, just to hear more… Propulsiveness is a quality that’s hard to explain and harder still to teach — but if Jennifer Close ever felt like running a course on it, I’d sign up.”
—Liz Moore, The New York Times
“Everything’s falling apart: Jane Sullivan’s marriage, her sister’s band, their cousin’s relationship. All are drawn back to the Chicago eatery their grandfather founded. Weaving her story around the restaurant, the Cubs’ fortunes and the mood after the 2016 election, Close serves up a treat.”
—Robin Micheli and Marion Winik, People Magazine
“Close...drops readers smack into Oak Park, a leafy Chicago suburb, and lets them hear the hiss of fryers hitting hot oil and catch an ice-cold Old Style sliding across the bar… Close lets each character's unique personality shine. Fans of Tracey Lange's We Are the Brennans and Taylor Jenkins Reid's Malibu Rising will fall in love with these maddening, loving, stubborn relatives. Setting nostalgia against progress, tradition against rebirth, Close outlines the cousins' grief and personal growth as they work with, and against, one another.”
—Booklist, starred