Even a failed, three-way collaboration and later a manuscript’s rejection didn’t scare this journalist away from storytelling.

Over lunch, Dallas and two friends plotted, divided up and crafted characters for a book later abandoned when their day jobs got in the way.

Later the fledgling novelist resurrected and rewrote a post-college manuscript only to receive the dreaded rejection letter from her agent.

Hooked on fiction, Dallas persevered eventually producing Buster Midnight’s Cafe, an end-of-depression look at the hell-roaring days of coal mining in Butte, Montana.

Steeped in history from an early age, Dallas covered the Rocky Mountain region as a staff writer and the first female bureau chief for Business Week magazine.

Schooled  daily in Virginia’s past by her mother, Dallas and her siblings toured Washington’s Mount Vernon and Arlington House, residence of Robert E. Lee as children.

But a 1945 move to Denver opened up the west for a writer who never ventured  back east again.

Subjects ranging from copper mining in Butte, Montana, and polygamy in Utah, to the role of women in business and sexual harassment provided future background for Dallas’ fiction dominated by female characters.

The Chili Queen

Set in Nalgitas, New Mexico, in the 1860s, The Chili Queen follows the life of Addie French, a con artist turned madam.

Returning by train from Kansas City, Addie befriends a prim and proper lady traveling west as a mail-order bride.  But when Emma, the spinster, is jilted, she seeks refuge in Addie’s ‘boarding house’ and life at the brothel is never the same again.

This psychological thriller cum detective story takes the reader on horseback through the plains of New Mexico and Colorado as the con men/women try to out run the person they swindled.   Through Dallas’ words, one can feel the wide open spaces and sniff the sweet-smelling air of the old west.

Tallgrass

Just after the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an act forcing all of  California’s Japanese Americans into internment camps.

When Dallas’ pen hits paper, this relocation to Tall Grass (Amache) produces an  fearful atmosphere ripe with paranoia in Ellis Colorado,  a small town of sugar beet farmers.

From the viewpoint of Rennie Stroud, 13, the reader watches as the bigoted townspeople heap blame on the nearby Japanese when a crippled girl is found brutally murdered and raped.

Often compared to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Tall Grass highlights the struggle of the dirt-poor farmers in the sparsely populated southeast town of Granada.

Discussion questions can be found here.

The Diary of Mattie Spenser

In the post-civil war era, the stigma of being a spinster compels Mattie to accept an impromptu marriage proposal and accompany her new husband by wagon train to the western territories.

While Luke battles to shape the frontier into a homestead, the lone female endures hardship, frugality, betrayal, infant mortality and drought along with the constant threat of Indian attack.

In Mattie, Dallas gives us a woman of courage and faith in the treeless, inhospitable landscape of Eastern Colorado.

Don’t forget the Persian Pickle Club, another Sandra Dallas favorite.

A list of nonfiction titles can be found here.  Fictional titles here:

Sometimes the evening will feature the movie version of a favorite book and other times the high point will be a game of trivia drawn from the year’s reading list.

For December ’09, Anne compiled a jeopardy game using information from the following books:

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

84, Charing Cross Road

Wish You Well

The Persian Pickle Club

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Third Angel

Back When We Were Grownups

The categories and the questions were as follows:

The British Isles

1. A channel island between England and France where our August selection took place: (Guernsey Island)
2. The Marks & Company address Helene Hanff sends her reading requests to: (84 Charing Cross Rd)
3. Lucy Green is given a dog while visiting this country:  (Scotland)
4. Biddy, Patch & No No’s mother lives in this country:  (England)
5. The Lion Park Hotel in London plays a big role in this book : (The Third Angel)

Food & Drink

1. Precious Ramotswe enjoys this particular brew:  (bush tea)
2. Rebecca Davitch gets this spilled all over her shoes by her future mother-in-law:  (ham)
3. Dessert was always provided by the weekly hostess of this group:
(Persian Pickle Quilt Club)
4. Will Allenby’s nightly dinner: (chili)
5. Tinned ham and eggs were some of the gifts Helene sent because of this in 84 Charing Cross Rd: (rationing)

Mysteries

1. Besides coal, this other fuel was also discovered in the Cardinal coal mine:
(natural gas)
2. Ella Crooks husband Ben disappeared and was found here: (buried in a field)
3. The problem with Michael Macklin’s room on the 7th floor of the Lion Park Hotel: (haunted/ghost -of Teddy Healy)
4. Mma Makutsi figures out that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s house is being used as this: (illegal bar – shebeen)
5. Mma Ramotswe’s secret that she can’t bring herself to tell anyone:
(she thinks she is still married to her 1st husband)

Friends, Relatives & Others

1. Mma Ramotswe’s office manager proudest achievement:
(97% on her final exam from Botswana Secretarial College)
2. Louisa Mae & Oz Cardinal go to live with this relative when their parents died:  (great-grandmother)
3. Juliet & Dawsey decide to do this:  (get married)
4. How Helene Hanff and Frank Doel kept in touch:  (letter writing/post/mail)
5. The gift Zepha leaves for Queenie when she and Blue leave suddenly:
(Quilt- called Road to California)

Name That Book

Identify book by location

1. Takes place in Appalachia – (Wish You Well)
2. Kansas – (Persian Pickle Club)
3. New York and London – (84 Charing Cross Rd)
4. Baltimore – (Back When We Were Grownups)
5. Botswana – (In The Company of Cheerful Ladies)

Note: Elly won the prize for the most correct answers.

** To facilitate this year-end trivia bash, refer to the discussion questions distributed monthly.

What does your bookclub do for fun?

***Thanks to Anne for sharing the jeopardy book trivia with my readers!!

The Persian Pickle, of course. (see previous post)

The paisley, a droplet-shaped vegetable motif of Persian and Indian origin, has oftentimes been called a Persian Pickle by American traditionalists and quilters as far back as 1818.

The design emerged in Persia or Iran as early as 1501. From then on until 1736, the twisted teardrop adorned crowns and court garments.

Still a popular motif today in south and central Asian countries,  silk is woven with richly colored threads of  gold and  silver for weddings garments and dresses for that special occasion.

But paisley is not just for wearing. In Uzbekistan as well as Iran, the pattern enriches paintings, jewelry, frescoes, curtains, tablecloths, quilts, carpets, garden landscaping and pottery.

Imported by the East India Company in the 1600s, the popularity of the design, resembling a large comma, grew to such an extent that the company failed to keep up with the demand.

In the 1700s and 1800s, inhabitants of the European Baltic States made use of the paisley as a protective charm to ward off evil demons.

The pattern acquired its name from the town of Paisley in central Scotland. After soldiers, returning from India, brought back cashmere shawls for their wives, mothers and sweethearts, every woman wanted one of her own.

In the first half of the 19th century, Scottish weavers led all others in  producing the five-color, paisley-patterned shawl. Ten years later, in 1860, the number of colors had been increased to 15 – still only one-fourth of the number of the colors on the imported Kashmir shawls.

Later, manufacturers learned how to print the paisley motif onto cotton squares which became the multi-purpose bandanna of today.

In the U. S., the comma-like shape appeared frequently in the  style of clothing favored by the ‘hippies’ of the 60s and 70s. The Beatles‘ trip to India in 1968, increased interest in that country’s spirituality, culture and design. In 1967, John Lennon commissioned a custom-painted Rolls Royce with the popular teardrop design.

Guitar makers  at Fender stuck paisley-patterned wallpaper on the bodies of their instruments to create the Pink Persian version of the Telecaster. A slightly more modern recording artist, Prince, paid homage to the paisley influence by creating the Paisley Park recording label and establishing the Paisley Park Studios.

Whether you wear it, walk on it, gaze adoringly at it, or sleep under it, the Persian Pickle or paisley design has delighted millions throughout the last 500 years of fashion.  At our house, it graces the hall bathroom in the form of a decorative shower curtain.  Where can it be found in your home?

The Pickles are members of a multi-generational group of farm wives who meet weekly to quilt, chat and ‘improve their minds’.

In her second novel, The Persian Pickle Club, Sandra Dallas has created female characters that most have met time and again.  First, there’s the timid older lady (Ella Crook) along with the overbearing and bossy woman (Septima Judd).  Next, comes the inexperienced, newly married, young girl (Queenie Bean and Rita Ritter) and lastly, the average woman who just tries to get along with everyone else (Ada June Zinn and Sabra Ritter).

(Since some bookclubbers found it difficult to differentiate between these characters and the rest of the Persian Pickle Club, too, a list appears below.)

• Sabra: the jolly matriarch of the Ritter family. She happily accepts her role as: farmer’s wife and mother of grown children, Tom and Agnes T.

• Agnes: knobby figure, no lips and little slit eyes, characterize the unmarried daughter of Sabra and Howard. Setting her career plans aside, this 25-year-old reluctantly works the family farm in her brother’s absence.

• Rita: recent addition to the Ritter clan by her marriage to Tom. This 23-year-old scrap of a girl comes straight from Denver.  Rita’s buttery curls, huge eyes, and ambition to be  journalist immediately set her apart from the other Pickles.

• Septima Judd: the unofficial leader and richest member of the club drives a yellow Packard. A formidable matron with thick glasses and a chin full of warts, Mrs. Judd is known for her loyalty and blustery manner.

• Queenie Bean: the narrator and youngest member of the Persian Pickle Club. As the talkative wife of Grover, she pictures herself as small framed (bigger than Rita’s 5 foot, 100 pounds) with a straight brown bob.

• Opaline Dux:  quiet except when blurting out odd remarks. Characterized by her sweaty hands and long white hair, Opaline has been known to talk to her chickens both inside the house and out.

• Ada June Zinn: almost  40. Her specialty dessert, bread pudding,  always receives compliments from the Pickles, her six children and husband, Buck.

• Ceres Root: The only living founding member of the group suffers from arthritic hands which makes quilting difficult.

• Ella Crook: accepting of the hardship of farming with no electricity. At 60 plus years of age, she is the best quilter of the group. Described as small and wispy, Ella’s sweet disposition and frequent blushes, make her a favorite with all of the Pickles.

• Nettie Burgett: looks older than her 50 years, with her gray hair and even grayer skin.  Her worries include a gambling husband, Tyrone; a promiscuous daughter, Velma; and a goiter always carefully covered with a scarf.

• Forest Ann Finding: a widow crowned by a halo of hair the color of maize.  Pretty and slender, she appears younger than Nettie, her sister-in-law. Could it be the man who stops by at 5 p.m. daily that keeps Forest Ann looking  so young?

Narrator Queenie Bean, holds the two-part story together.

Part 1 introduces the setting: 1930s, drought-ridden Harveyville, Kansas, and the characters (listed above) all struggling to make a living during the depression years. Funny thing though, none of the Pickles nor their immediate families seem to be going hungry or lack gasoline to power their cars.   In fact, the Beans (especially Grover) have been known to feed and house any drifters who might happen by their property.

Part 2 includes the murder mystery that some reviewers found “far-fetched and totally unnecessary”. When the bones of Ben Crook are found in the far-north field, Rita sees her chance to get off the farm and back to the big city. Eager to help her friend, Queenie happily chauffeurs the fledgling reporter around the countryside collecting information for her big ‘scoop’.

Returning from an errand of mercy at the Burgett farm late one evening,  the two young women are terrorized by a roving tramp intent on ‘having a little fun’. From that point on, the youngest Pickle hooks the screen door and stays close to home leaving Rita to pursue the story of Ben Crook’s murder alone.

After having read through “some dirty old record books” and “asking questions of people who didn’t want to talk about Ben Crook”, Rita ends up with more confessions that she can handle – one from every member of the Persian Pickle Club.

Who really did kill Ben Crook?  Read the book and find out.

Information about other books by Sandra Dallas can be found at:  www.sandradallas.com.

For discussion questions go to:  www.search.barnesand noble.com/Persian-Pickle-Club/Sandra-Dallas/e/9780312147013/?itm=1 Be sure to click the tab for features.