Pick Up The Real Minerva Penned By Mary Sharratt Issued As Text

REAL MINERVA is powerful and beautifully written novel, Barbara, Cora, Penelope: three women's lives that SHARRATT intertwines in a beautifully choreographed tale, These strong, singular women's stories are about struggling surviving, living and loving fiercely and without compromise, The roles and societal structure that defined smalltown life in thes shape the destinies of Barbara, Cora, and Penelope, Each has a secret to keep, Each must find a way to escape and reestablish their lives, THE REAL MINERVA is historical fiction as well as feminist literature at its best, SHARRATT is a masterful author, I have very much enjoyed her novels that I've read so far: ILLUMINATIONS, THE VANISHING POINT, THE DAUGHTERS OF THE WITCHING HILL and, of course, THE REAL MINERVA.
I look forward to reading her first novel, SUMMIT AVENUE, as well as her upcoming novel, THE DARK LADY's MASK, This was an excellent book about the's in Minerva, a small town, It was about spousal abuse, and friendship and growing up, I really liked it. I will read more of Mary Sharratt's books, This book was an interesting historical fiction read, but I think the best part about it was that the characters created by Mary Sharratt were so complex and generally likeable despite their flaws.
I was really attached to them by the end! it is, In Minerva, Minn, the owner if the factory, Mr, Hamilton has had to put his wife away, She contacted sleeping sickness. Thereafter he begins an affair with his live in hired woman, Barbara Niebeck, Her daughter, Penny suspected and after a flight, Penny flees and finds herself twenty three miles of town where Cora Viney has tried to have her baby by herself.
Penny stays on to help Cora while back on the Hamilton place her mother continues her affair with her boss, Mr. Hamilton's oldest daughter Irene once back from camp begins to suspect and spy, Although her mother is in a hospital, she is still alive and Irene views all this as a betray of her mother,
Cora Viney is trying to hide from an abusive husband never dreaming he has hired a private detective to find her,
With this setting in place and two young unsettled girls involved, events unfold in this small town in rural Minnesota which will soon scandalize the town and settle the fates of both Irene and Penny.

Read on to find out!
Personally when I set out to read this, I was not sure if I would like it but Mary Sharratt never disappoints, not even in her earlier novels of which this is one.
It is a story that will stay with you for a long time, I really enjoyed reading this book, It was a quick and an interesting read, It is the story aboutdifferent women who have in common that they are strong even though they might not know it,
Some of the plot was a surprise to me and that does not happen that much so that was nice, I am planning on trying to find this author's first book and i hope she will write more, Loved The Vanishing Point. Unlike most reviewers, I didn't love this book, While the writing was certainly excellent, and the characters were interesting, I found the plot implausible, Why throw in a second unlikely and gruesome murder, therefore making the whole thing feel like an overthetop soap opera The conflict with Cora's abusive husband provided plenty of tension and should have been the focus of the suspense.
The added melodrama detracted from what could have been a poignant story about women's friendship and mutual support, To top it off the author added a third completely unrelated murder, pushing things to an almost ridiculous degree, WHY This could have been a four or even five star novel if the author had exercised more restraint and kept events within believable bounds, The Real Minerva didn't need all that sensationalistic violence to make it's point, Minerva, Minnesota, inis the picture of Willa Catherlike gentility: the Northern Pacific Railway runs through a town center dominated by church steeples and the Hamilton Creamery and Pop Factory.
But Minerva is also a small town of limited opportunity, a place where the status quo is firmly entrenched and rigidly enforced, Against this tableau of midwestern placidity and calm, three Minerva women assert their dignity and independence against all odds,
The troubled relationship between young Penny and her mother, Barbara, is getting worse, Disturbed by her mother's affair with the man they clean house for, Penny answers an ad to work for Cora Egan, a Chicago society woman who has fled a bad marriage and intends to raise her child alone on her grandfather's farm.
Cora's situation shocks the town, but over time her presence opens a door in Penny's and Barbara's lives, Through these women, Mary Sharratt considers what it takes to reinvent the self, to claim one's true identity,
Mary Sharratt's first novel, Summit Avenue, was hailed as a "remarkablel debut, . . that weaves dark, evocative fairy tales and passionate longings into an incandescent comingofage story" Publishers Weekly, starred review, Readers interested in feminine archetypes and women in myth will be similarly drawn to Sharratt's newest novel, Exquisite historical detail and emotional resonance infuseThe Real Minerva,an oldfashioned story with a modern spirit, A Mary Sharratt book is always a good read for me, I'm continually impressed by the variety of settings she chooses for her novels, This story takes place mostly in the's in smalltown Minnesota, The lives of the three main charactersall strong women in the book were woven together by their love, sins/guilt, and rescuing each other, This was a pretty good story, Two grown women and twoyear old girls each make choices that are, in the least, not in line with the norms of the day in rural Minnesota in the early's and, at most, extremely desperate.
The most interesting aspect for me was thinking about a "justified" murder, If you murder one person to save another, you have still killed someone, And if someone takes the blame to save the murderer, the one who killed may escape jail time and social stigma but still lives with the burden of their action for the rest of their life.
Ok sort of wierd I chose this because one of my Etsy friends name is Minerva and shes awesome, :

So its set in thes for most of the story, But little is said or done that couldnt have made it set today, which is a little sadIll explain in a minute, It takes place in Minerva Minnesota and tells the story of a mother and daughter, a mother and daughter, and mother and daughter: Barbara and Penny, Cora and Phoebe, and to a lesser but no less tragic degree, Hazel and Irene.
Barbara and Penny live with Irene and her family as hired help,

Cora is staying at her grandfathers farm on the edge of town, Hazel is locked away in a mental institution, suffering from a malady that doesnt allow her to fully wake up or fully sleep, Their paths further intersect when Penny runs away from her mother, angry that she, Barbara, and Irenes father, their employer, are having an affair, She ends upmiles away, at the Maagdenbergh farm just after Cora has given birth to her baby girl, Penny stays on as a hired hand, helping Cora care for the baby and the house, She vows in her heart to protect them as she learns, first secretly and then more openly, of Coras past, On the other side of town, Barbaras story continues with her falling in love with Mr, Hamilton and Irene seeing that as the ultimate affront to her sick mother memory so shewell, I wont give away the ending,

The part that saddens me is the way the town looks down on Barbara and Cora is pretty much the same as it would be now, only people may be less

vocal about it.
Progress, where art thou Im sure someone could give this a more political literary analysis, I chose to take it as it is, not looking for hidden meanings or inferences, Its beautiful and a little haunting, I enjoyed itrounded up to

While reading this book, I questioned much of the plausibility and some of the history, in particular that of the Mexican work crew.
Having grown up in thes ands fairly close to where this book seems to be placed, I did not remember hearing of Mexican work crews in thes.
Also, to my knowledge there was only one Dutch family anywhere near where I lived, the Dutch having settled further west and south, But it is never wise to trust ones memory of history, A quick search on the Web revealed that such crews were plentiful in the United States in thes, including northwest Minnesotas beet fields also not near where the story took place.
That said, it is quite possible there would have been crews that helped with wheat harvesting in south central Minnesota, But in thes as jobs became scarce for white Americans, Mexicans both legal and illegal were deported by the thousands, Thus as farming became more mechanized the need for migrant crews was replaced by mechanized farming, And over time migrants returned to the beet fields but only appeared in towns with canning factories, filling the vacancies made by students returning to school in the fall.
Their stay was brief and they lived in barracks or shacks near the factories, For perhaps a month, some of the children attended the local schools in which no one spoke Spanish,

WARNING!!!! SPOILERS AHEAD,

Least plausible for me, however, was the role of murders by women in the book, Not only by the characters, but by the notorious woman mentioned who killed her children, I know this was a story based on women, but why no mention of the men No murderers And why were the Nelsons able to continue to terrorize the town while the women were locked up So many murders by women in a town of,which in thes would have been quite a bit larger than most of the towns around.
Even in thes ands most of the towns in south central Minnesota were under,,

I was also disturbed with how catty all the women were, and how noble most of the men were, With the exception of Mr, H. The doctor and the shopkeeper were kinder than any of the town women to the unfortunate, I didnt buy it.

There was just plain a lot I didnt buy about the book in plot and story, I also felt the reconciliation between mother and daughter was too smooth, Also, the final chapter jumping ahead missed much that would have led to that, For example, how did Bess and her mother survive the Depression years in California How did Bess track down Cora Bess would have beenand traveling on her own, speaking little Spanish.


On the positive side, the female characters were well drawn, the story kept my interest and moved quickly, and the sense of place was good.
I wouldnt hesitate to read of Mary Sharratts books,
.