Book Club April 2025- Marrying the Ketchups
By: Jennifer Close
Published Year: 2022
Publisher: Knopff
Pages: 320
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): 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?
What I thought
This book stressed me out.
Marrying the Ketchups follows the Sullivan family. They are restaurant owners in Chicago and the story takes place in 2016-2017. It starts right as the Cubs are winning the World Series and into Trump winning his first term as President. The story is told mostly through three points of view, Teddy, Gretchen, and Jane, the three 30 somethings in the Sullivan family. Jane is dealing with the fallout of her marriage, Gretchen just moved back from New York City, and Teddy is struggling to find his place within Sullivan’s.
I think if I had read this book before Trump was re-elected I might’ve felt slightly different about it. Right now, this book was too close to reality. It put me back into that initial space of negativity after the election but at that point there was still some slight hope that things wouldn’t be as bad as they actually were. As a Chicagoan, I did love the references to the city and the World Series. I very much remembered all of the feels during that time and the hope and joy everyone felt.
Besides the timeline being a little bit of a struggle, I also found none of these characters to be likable. This family is dysfunctional with a capital D. The older Sullivan’s are stuck in their ways while the middle Sullivan’s come off as entitled with no real motivation or drive. Gretchen was maybe the most tolerable for me until the final quarter. She definitely has a bit of Peter Pan syndrome and, even though she was 34, acted like she was 18.
The writing is well done and I did enjoy how the story wove so many generations together. However, by the time I got to the final 20 pages or so I was ready to be done. I didn’t quite know where this was ending up and what the point of some of the storylines were. I think if you like reading about drama and dysfunctional families, this is a good choice for you. You also need to be ok being brought back to 2016/early 2017 as it does touch a lot on politics and the tough state of the world at that time.
What Book Club Thought
Seems like we all were on the same page. We enjoyed it and felt it was an easy read but hated pretty much everyone. I do think my memory of the book is a little more positive than my initial impression. We did have a lot of discussion about the characters and how our feelings changed about them as the story continued. It was a fun book to talk about and I am glad it’s one I read with book club. While I may not run around recommending this book, if you are a Chicagoan looking for a book club choice, I would recommend picking this one up. Just maybe wait 4 more years.