The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less
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Meet Evelyn Ryan, mother of six sons and four daughters, who kept her family afloat during the "contest era" of the 1950s and 1960s by writing jingles and entering TV, radio, newspaper, and direct-mail contests. Publishers Weekly In the 1950s, the Ryan family struggled to make ends meet. Ten kids and a father who spent most of his paycheck on booze drained the family's meager finances. But mom Evelyn Ryan, a former journalist, found an ingenious way to bring in extra income: entering contests on the backs of cereal boxes and the like. The author, Evelyn's daughter, tells the entertaining story of her childhood and her mother's contest career with humor and affection. She is not a professional narrator, but her love and admiration for her mother come through in every sentence. Evelyn won supermarket shopping sprees that put much-needed food on the table, provided washing machines and other appliances the family couldn't afford, and delivered cash to pay the mounting pile of bills. This well-told, suspenseful tale is peppered with examples of Evelyn's winning poems and slogans, taken from the years of notebooks that she saved and passed on to her daughter, and has a fiction-worthy climax that will keep listeners laughing even as they're glued to Ryan's tale. Simultaneous release with the Simon & Schuster hardcover (Forecasts, Feb. 5). (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Foreword11Part 11.The Contester162.Rhyme Does Pay383.Supermarket Spree51Part 24.The Sleeping Giant625.Father of the Year756.Too Damned Happy897.Defiance998.Tickle Hills110Part 39.Poet Laureate12410.Giant Steps14011.Name That Sandwich160Part 412.The Affadaisies18213.Round Robin20614.Going, Going, Gone228Part 515.Hell and High Water26016.Mrs. Etchie27017.Such a Thing as Destiny283Part 618.Rock Bottom29219.Her Weight in Gold312Epilogue: A Truckload of Birds335Afterword347
