“Vinegar Girl” Anne Tyler’s Charming, Pragmatic Retelling Tames Expectations

Vinegar Girl

by Anne Tyler

Meet Kate: Pragmatist, Not a Shrew

Vinegar Girl tells the tale of 29 year old Kate Battista, who moved back home after being kicked out of college for telling her botany professor that his explanation of photosynthesis was “half-assed.” Now she takes care of her absent-minded, eccentric scientist father and 15 year old coquettish sister, Bunny (their mother, who was absent at best, died when Bunny was born). And she gardens, even though their yard has too much shade to grow much, and works as a teacher’s assistant at a local preschool, even though she doesn’t particularly like children.

Children like her, though. Parents and school administrators, not so much. You see, Kate is pretty blunt, unwilling to sugarcoat, deflect, or mitigate what she has to say, which at times puts her at loggerheads with “polite” society. Unlike Shakespeare’s Katherine, Anne Tyler’s Kate does not have an acid wit meant to belittle, just a no-nonsense one that is honest without filters.

Filter-Free in Polite Society

“Emma Gray,” Mrs. Darling said. She was certainly wasting no words today.

Emma Gray? Kate’s brain went racing through possibilities. There were none at all, as far as she knew. Emma Gray had never been a problem.

“Emma asked who you thought Room Four’s best drawer was,” Mrs. Darling said. She was consulting the notepad she kept beside her telephone. “You said” – and she read off the words – “I think probably Jason.”

“Right,” Kate said.

She waited for the punch line, but Mrs. Darling put down her notepad as if she thought she’d already delivered it. She laced her fingers together and surveyed Kate with a “So there!” expression on her face.

“That’s exactly right,” Kate expanded.

“Emma’s mother is very upset,” Mrs. Darling told her. “She says you made Emma feel inferior.”

“She is inferior,” Kate said. “Emma G. can’t draw worth a damn. She asked my honest opinion and I gave her an honest answer.”

“Kate,” Mrs. Darling said, “there is so much to argue with in that, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“What’s wrong with it? I don’t get it.”

“Well, one thing you might have said is, ‘Oh, now, Emma, I’ve never looked at art as a competition. I’m just so thrilled that all of you are creative!’ you’d say. ‘All of you doing your best at whatever you’re trying to do.'”

Kate tried to imagine herself speaking this way. She couldn’t. She said, “But Emma didn’t mind; I swear she didn’t. All she said was, ‘Oh, yeah, Jason,’ and then she went on about her business.”

“She minded enough to report it to her mother,” Mrs. Darling said.

“Maybe she was only making conversation.”

A Softer, Sunnier Petruchio

In Vinegar Girl, Ms. Tyler’s Petruchio is also skewed to a slightly different hue, to an equally wonderful effect. Pyotr Cherbakov has been Dr. Battista’s research assistant for almost three years, brought to the USA on an O-1 visa (reserved for individuals with extraordinary abilities or achievements). But funding for their research is drying up, and Pyotr will have to return to his own country when his visa expires in two months, unless another way is found for him to stay – like, say, marrying an American.

Pyotr is large, blonde, a bit obtuse when it comes to many social interactions, not exactly fluent in English although he delights in learning new idioms. He doesn’t seem to have a guileful bone in his body.  He carries the same kind of artless confidence as Kate, but rather than coming from a place of insensate conviction, his comes from a kind of naiveté, a purity of belief that everything will work out.

A Modern Marriage of Convenience

The major crux of the story in Vinegar Girl, of course, is the manufactured relationship between the somber, no nonsense Kate and the cheerful, no worries Pyotr. Kate is hurt by her father’s insistence that she help the family cause by marrying his assistant, since it’s unlikely she’ll have any other serious relationships. Pyotr is fully aware that Kate not only doesn’t love him, she probably doesn’t even like him, but that doesn’t keep him from a kind of coltish wooing in an attempt to make her more amenable to keeping him around. He has no problem with it being a marriage of convenience, and no intention of forcing more upon Kate than her signature on the marriage certificate and a semblance of a relationship, for Immigration purposes – but he also doesn’t want her to be miserable.

The deviations of Vinegar Girl from The Taming of the Shrew are obvious: there are few subplots with Kate and Pyotr always at center stage, but there are enough touchstones to keep both stories grounded in each other. Kate is not a shrew as much as an unapologetic pragmatist, Pyotr is not a fortune seeker as much as a good natured fellow who just wants to stick around. They may not be compatible, but their conflict is with expectations, not of each other – even though the incompatibilities between them are touching, humorous, and seemingly insurmountable. Until, of course, they aren’t.

A Standout Bard Retelling 

Vinegar Girl is, frankly, a delightful book. Kate is a marvelous character, and Pyotr strikes all the right notes to keep from becoming a sidekick. Kate’s father is ridiculous and perfect in being the unwitting cause for angst on many levels, and Bunny injects the narrative with an appreciated anchor to “normalcy” while still being comedic. The novel could stand on its own, actually, but is even more enjoyable seeing its relationship with the Bard’s work. A fine read, indeed.

~ Sharon Browning

Buy on audiobooks.com

Buy on Audible

Buy on Malaprop’s

Buy on Barnes & Noble

Buy on Kindle

Buy on Books-A-Million

Buy on Chirp