Book Review — Frozen Dinners
“Frozen Dinners” is a memoir by Elaine Ambrose detailing her experience growing up in Idaho. Her father, a hard working but difficult man struggled to provide for his family but was determined to do so. A long-haul trucker, he realized that driving home an empty truck was foolish. Bringing back new-fangled frozen dinners was his ticket to success. He managed to turn that idea into a trucking business worth millions.
Still, there was strife in the family. Papa Ambrose was abusive: his children were afraid of him, and his wife was cowed. He was simultaneously brilliant, hardworking, inventive, bullying, mean, and insensitive. A complicated man who inspired admiration and fear, when he died, the family was thrown into chaos, and the family fortune was squandered.
Elaine Ambrose, whose writing wheelhouse is usually breezy, funny essays about life, takes a more serious bent in this memoir about her fractured family. Still, her style is readable and engaging. Your heart breaks for her as it cheers along with her defiance.
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