Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, and it also has many interesting books. In this series, we are sharing some of the books we like from Minnesota, or Minnesota authors.
We are mapping our literary journey around Minnesota, so you can see all the interesting places where our books are set. Follow our progress on our Google Map, accessible by clicking that link or searching for the title CMLE Reads Across Minnesota!
This week we look at a book not set in Minnesota, or that even mentions Minnesota. We do want to recognize all Minnesota authors, and Matthew Batt @MattCBatt is in St. Paul. And this is a fun book about home renovation! As a former Cheesehead myself, it was also nice to read about his visits home to Milwaukee.
As someone who also bought the neighborhood crack house, and spent time fixing things up (horrifying, terrible things), I really enjoyed reading this book! The overpowering smells, the always-weirdly-damp carpet – I fondly remember it all. He doesn’t mention having to clean cigarette burns from the bathtub, or scrubbing down the walls because they are too covered in cigarette smoke (or whatever) to paint. But I assume that happened to him and his wife just as it did with us – you can’t discuss everything in one book. Oh the fun of knowing you are unlikely to make anything worse with your DIY home improvement! It really does take the pressure off.
From Amazon:
“An improbably funny account of how the purchase and restoration of a disaster of a fixer-upper saves a young marriage
When a season of ludicrous loss tests the mettle of their marriage, Matthew Batt and his wife decide not to call it quits. They set their sights instead on the purchase of a dilapidated house in the Sugarhouse section of Salt Lake City. With no homesteading experience and a full-blown quarter-life crisis on their hands, these perpetual grad students/waiters/nonprofiteers decide to seek salvation through renovation, and do all they can to turn a former crack house into a home. Dizzy with despair, doubt, and the side effects of using the rough equivalent of napalm to detoxify their house, they enter into full-fledged adulthood with power tools in hand.
Heartfelt and joyous, Sugarhouse is the story of how one couple conquers adversity and creates an addition to their family, as well as their home.”