This biography of one of America’s iconic women captures Betty MacDonald from top to bottom, from her grandparents to the relatives that survived her death. Her books shined a humorous, if sometimes critical, eye on certain aspects of living in the Pacific Northwest as one the last frontier lands in the country from the 1920s-1940s. Now Paula Becker draws the curtain back and shows us some of the things that Betty herself was reluctant to put in her semi-autobiographical novels.

After having listened to Betty MacDonald’s four novels, and having read her Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books as a kid, I felt like I knew her somewhat. This biography filled in some of the blanks and had a few surprises for me as well. Getting to know more about Betty’s ancestors and her first husband was an interesting place to start. I loved that her mom was a no-nonsense kind of person and happily traveled with her husband (who worked for a mining company – if I recall correctly). This job took the family to some of the most rugged areas of the US.

Later, when Betty starts publishing novels, Becker gives a somewhat detailed account of what each one is about. While these books aren’t described one after another all in a row (but are sprinkled in among the biography along the timeline of when they were published), I did find the descriptions a little tedious. However, I have recently finished listening to them and they are still fresh in my mind. I think that if you haven’t read the books in some time (or perhaps you haven’t read all 4 of them) then this would be a good refresher for you.

For me, the most interesting parts were in the last quarter of the book – all that stuff that happens after Betty’s fourth novel, Onions in the Stew, was published. While Betty’s second marriage was evidently much happier than her first, it wasn’t untroubled. There were money problems which surprised me. Betty’s books were very well received in their day, complete with radio and TV series along with a movie. Yet success doesn’t always prepare one to manage money well, especially if one turns that responsibility over to a spouse. Betty was in the unusual position of being the breadwinner for the family and yet also feeling socially obligated to play the merry housemaker. Becker gives us details on this without falling into gossip. I really appreciate that she stuck with known facts and extracts from MacDonald letters to paint this picture of Betty’s and Don’s marriage.

While I had read on Wikipedia about Betty’s legal troubles (several people were not happy with how they were supposedly portrayed in her books), Becker gives us many details. Plenty of those complaining received a bit of fame. Some of them really seemed to enjoy it so it was hard to say that the portrayals in Betty’s books did them any harm.

I was saddened to learn of Betty’s death and this probably sounds quite odd as I’ve known since I picked up The Egg and I so many months ago that she was deceased. However, I’ve really come to enjoy her company through these books. As Becker’s biography walks us through her last months, I really felt for Betty. She died young by today’s standards but I doubt there was much more medicine could have done then. After reading her book about her lengthy stay in a tuberculosis sanatorium (The Plague and I), I can guess that she faced her final illness with the same pointed wit.

I received a free copy of this book via The Audiobookworm.

The Narration: Paula Becker narrated her own book and since this is nonfiction, it worked pretty well. She tried her hand at doing a few voices when necessary and those performances were passable. For the bulk of the book, she does a great job of maintaining an even speed and giving slight inflections here and there, letting us know that she’s just as engaged in the book as us listeners are.

Betty and her family had quite the time on Vashon Island, Washington State. With her second husband (Don MacDonald) and her two young girls (Joan and Anne), Betty experienced the joys and disappointments of living on an island. Set during WWII, this mostly autobiographical book recounts Betty’s life with wry humor and insight.

Once again, Betty has amused me. By now, after reading 4 books by her, I feel like Betty is somewhat of a friend. I really enjoyed this book from clamming to peaches to teen years to housecleaners. Living on Vashon Island, which was only connected to the mainland via ferries and personal boats, was quite a bit rougher than she and her family expected. There’s also the beauty of having an island house which is also captured well in this book.

The MacDonalds took over the house during an idyllic summer. There were plenty of clams on their personal beach, including geoduck clams. The downstairs practically-outdoor shower was perfect for rinsing off after time in the sea. The great big hearth would be quite wonderful in winter. Then the cold season sets in. The family comes to find out that having a nearly-outdoor shower is onerous to heat up in winter. The great big hearth is truly magnificent but you have to haul in the wood for it, usually driftwood from the beach. The reality settles in and yet the MacDonalds still find much to love about the island.

Betty does such a great job with the humor. She gently pokes fun at everyone and is a little more jabby when focusing the eye on herself. She praises her daughters abilities while also realistically portraying their teen-aged arguments and volatile mood swings. There are plenty of characters that appear through the several years this book covers. Some are helpful handymen, some good cooks, some terrible at child rearing, some are drunk and merry.

Onions in the Stew does a good job of showing the hardships or inconveniences (depending on your point of view) of island living. Betty doesn’t paint the entire experience as a ‘wonderful’ way of life. Nope. Using humor she gives us a slice of reality. That is the root of why I enjoy her books so much. While The Plague and I is still my favorite book by her, this one was quite good as well.

I received a free copy of this book via The Audiobookworm.

The Narration: Heather Henderson is great as the voice of Betty MacDonald. She also did a great job with the voices of Joan and Anne even as they age throughout the book. I also enjoyed her male voices, including Don’s. Her Japanese accent was also good.

The Egg and I is a mostly autobiographical account about Betty MacDonald’s time on a chicken farm in the late 1920s in Washington state. Filled with humor, there’s plenty of odd characters, hardships to over come, new foods to be explored, and eggs to be gathered, cleaned, and packaged for sale. The story starts off with a brief, but laughter-inducing, account of Betty’s school years leading up to her whirlwind romance with Bob, their marriage, and then moving to the Pacific Northwest in search of heaven – a chicken farm of their own! Betty isn’t your typical heroine with perfect hair and stylish figure. Nope, she’s like all the rest of us. She was considered rather too tall for the times, being 5 ft 9 in. I like that she had a belly and rough hands and messy hair. In many ways she’s a very practical person, but she’s still a city girl moving to the country, so there’s plenty for her to learn. There is one big negative to this book, which was typical of the time period (this book was originally published in 1945): racist remarks towards Native Americans. At the time, such remarks were common and considered accurate. Thankfully, our society as a whole has grown and such remarks today would not sit well with me at all. In truth, even in a historical perspective, these remarks make me a bit angry. However, I am glad that the publisher decided to keep the book as it was originally written instead of washing out these remarks, maintaining the historical accuracy of views at that time, and showing that people of every ethnicity, including the author, are flawed. OK, so now that that is out of the way, there’s plenty I enjoyed about this book. First, this story spoke to me in many ways. My husband and I some years ago left city life for rural living and had a little farm. We had to go through many of the same learning curves as Betty – starting a fire every day in winter to heat the house, irrigation, gardening, chickens, plowing with equines, stray dogs getting into our property, etc. While we have indoor plumbing, it’s not too hard to picture Betty briskly walking out to the outhouse on a crisp autumn morning. The Pacific Northwest, and several places named in this book, hold a special place in my heart. Having family in Port Angeles and Seattle, we have visited the area many times. So it was a real treat to see these places through Betty’s eyes in the late 1920s when things were really rugged. She talks of all the edible local foods including the Dungeness crabs and the geoduck clams. Having a chicken farm, they were never short of eggs, so she learned to add an extra egg or two to any recipe that called for eggs, and to a few recipes that did not. Ma and Pa Kettle feature prominently in the story, being some of the closest neighbors to the isolated chicken farm. There’s also the Hicks, who are eccentric in other ways. I think anyone who moves to the country will find a bevvy of interesting characters in the area and Betty doesn’t skimp on telling how odd her neighbors are. Also, Betty told amusing tales about the animals on the farm, her husband Bob, and inanimate objects, like the wood-burning kitchen stove. She doesn’t leave herself out of this well-meaning, laughter-inducing critique either. There’s plenty of chuckles to go around. It being a chicken farm, we have to talk about the chickens. Since Bob was often working away from the farm during the day, Betty was the main care-taker of all the beasties. I love her descriptions of all the loving labor she, and sometimes Bob, put into caring for these birds. There’s the daily cleaning of their houses, maintaining the fences around their yards, putting together their feed, tending to the chicks (which far too easily succumb to death), gathering the eggs, and regularly culling the flock. She very accurately describes how with any other beast, such care would be returned with affection. Not so with the chicken! So true, and I say that from a place of love for chickens. While Betty often jokes, she also usually tells it like it is. I hope others enjoy this classic as much as I do. I received a free copy of this book via The Audiobookworm. The Narration: Heather Henderson did a great job with this book. I love how she carries the humor, telling it with a sense of irony where needed. She has a unique voice for each character and her male voices are quite believable.

Das Cover:
Auf dem Cover befinden sich Huhn, Gans, Schwein, Küken und Schaf - ganz so, wie man es sich auf einem Bauernhof vorstellen würde. Im Hintergrund links erkennt man sogar eben jenen. Am Himmel lacht die Sonne, als könne nichts das beschauliche Farm-Leben stören. Ein niedliches Cover und für die Leser des Buches mit einem gewissen Augenzwinkern.

Die Story:
Frau MacDonald erzählt autobiografisch ausführlichst davon, wie ihr das Leben auf einer Hühnerfarm schmeckt.
Kurz eingeleitet wird das Buch durch Erzählungen aus ihrer Kindheit. Als sie aber ihren zukünftigen Mann Bob kennen lernt, beginnt die eigentliche Geschichte, mit der Betty den Leser erheitern möchte.
Sie schildert umschweifend die Erlebnisse, die sie mit ihrem neuen Haus und Hof hat und lässt auch manchmal, teilweise zur enervierenden Beanspruchung des Lesers, keine Einzelheit aus.

Die Charaktere:
Die wichtigste Person ist natürlich Betty. Wohlbehütet zwischen einer schrulligen Oma und vielen Geschwistern aufgewachsen, landet sie nach der Heirat auf einer Farm. Ihre Mutter hat ihr zur Genüge eingebläut, dass eine Frau ihrem Manne folgen müsse, egal, wohin die Reise geht. Gesagt, getan. Da ist Betty nun mit ihrem neuen Heim und muss sich als Putzfrau, Tierpflegerin, Ehefrau und Mutter behaupten. Gar nicht so leicht neben dem perfektionistischen und ehrgeizigen Bob, ihrem Ehemann. Bob macht Betty oftmals das Leben schwer und sehr häufig tat sie mir einfach nur Leid. Auch, wenn sie ihre Erlebnisse mit ihm mit einem gewissen Witz beschreibt, fragte ich mich stellenweise, ob sie sich wirklich liebten und was Betty dazu bewegte, auf dem Hof und bei diesem Mann zu bleiben. Herumgeschubst und bevormundet; nur harte Arbeit Tag für Tag, ohne jeglichen Dank oder etwas Anerkennung. Auf den vielen Seiten wurde mir einfach nicht klar, warum Betty so lange durchgehalten hat. Vielleicht fühlte sie sich ja doch ganz wohl zwischen Hühnern, Küken, Schweinen und ihrem Herd und wollte es einfach nicht zugeben. ;-)

Der Schreibstil:
Die Autorin erzählt sehr umschweifend und ausführlich, mit langen, verschachtelten Sätzen. Stellenweise musste ich den ein oder anderen Satz nochmals lesen. Man muss hier als Leser konzentriert am Ball bleiben. Wenn die Gedanken nur ein wenig abschweifen, hat man den Salat und muss den Absatz von vorn beginnen. So zogen sich natürlich die Wörter, Sätze, Seiten und Kapitel etwas in die Länge und wegen der zusätzlich sehr kleinen Schrift brauchte ich mitunter etwas länger mit dem Lesen.
Meiner Meinung nach hätte Frau MacDonald gern etwas an Inhalt streichen können, denn so einiges war überaus langatmig und zu detailliert - aber, das muss man dazu sagen: es ist natürlich autobiografisch.
Zwischen verschachtelten Sätzen, ausführlichen Erklärungen über Hof und Leute konnte mich die Autorin aber mit gut platziertem Witz nett unterhalten und mir einige Schmunzler entlocken.

Das Ende:
Dieses Buch endet damit, dass Bob eine neue Hühnerfarm bei Seattle findet und sie planen, dorthin umzusiedeln . Für Betty gibt es große Aussichten auf eine bessere Zukunft, da der Hof viel moderner eingerichtet ist. Aber es ist zu vermuten, dass sich insgesamt nicht viel ändern wird. Arme Betty. ;-)

Fazit:
Mit Witz und Ironie versucht die Autorin hier ihr Hühnerfarm-Leben zu beschreiben. Dies gelingt ihr nur bedingt, denn als Leser spürt man, dass hinter der Fassade der Ironie leise Verbitterung sitzt. Auch die umschweifenden Erklärungen von Frau MacDonald verbessern die Situation nicht. Dennoch: nette Unterhaltung, arme Autorin.

Quergelesen
Hui, diese Frau hat sich ja einiges gefallen lassen von ihrem Göttergatten. Und hält sich eindeutig für was besseres :/
Ich habe ein paar Rezensionen zu dem Buch gelesen und den Eindruck, dass in der deutschen Ausgabe ein bisschen geglättet wurde - die richtig rassistischen Stellen hab ich nämlich nicht gefunden (abgesehen davon, dass sie nach einem Besuch bei Indianern natürlich alles mit Lysol wäscht. Pf.)

Die Autorin kann schreiben und macht sich auch über sich selbst lustig - aber mich stört, dass sie sich doch sehr über die "Landbevölkerung" erhebt, die eigentlich liebenswürdig zu ihr ist.