The Beet Queen

The book explores several characters ' connections to one another through a series of stories they tell about their lives these stories speak of characters ' efforts to survive hard times and to confront the confusions of identity that inevitably mark the experiences of people who are separated from their families . In The Beet Queen characters relationships are tenuous , and most of these characters feel no strong connection to the land or to a cultural tradition that might help define for them the conditions of belonging . Their lives , in other words , are not deeply

rooted in either the earth or the community , and thus it is one of the novel 's ironies that it is finally a shallow root , the sugar beet , that promises to secure the future of the town

The Beet Queen 's action begins in 1932 , during the early years of the Depression , and ends in 1972 when the town has realized its citizens efforts to establish a new economic base . At the end of the novel Argus 's success in its endeavor is celebrated in a carnival -- a festival dedicated to honoring the beet . In the scene of carnival comically depicted in the novel 's closing pages readers are reminded of a similar event described near the beginning of the novel "Orphans Picnic , a bazaar held to benefit the homeless children of Saint Jerome 's (10 ) that three of the book 's characters are suddenly made orphans themselves . The Beet Queen is thus framed by its scenes of carnival , occasions when its world is turned topsy-turvy . The carnival can be read as the site of exuberance and violent disorder . Anything , it seems , can happen at the carnival , and anyone can be crowned "queen " for a day

The Beet Queen 's episodic plot first unfolds accounts of the complete dissolution of a family , and then traces the courses of lives that are shaped or changed in the aftermath of that tragedy . The stories told in the first half of the book therefore recount characters ' various efforts to find means to survive the abrupt upheaval in their lives . In the second half of the novel , when Dot Adare claims her place at the center of their concerns , characters begin to see that they must construct for themselves a redefined understanding of what constitutes a family...