I enjoyed this little book especially for the historic look at life in San Diego during WWII. I don't remember the war, but I do remember the tuna cannery, the bars for sailors (where the gaslamp district is now, oh yes, locker clubs and strip joints), the "Tia Juana" nightclubs (I guess they're still there). Love the story of the spunky beer-guzzling old ladies! A fun read. ( )

This book is probably mostly unknown book, it really is out of print but you can buy used books and there is an e-book available. My book club voted to read this book. Mary Lasswell is an American author who wrote during WWII while she waited for her military husband to return. Suds in Your Eye is her first book and it is a rather silly book about 3 old, impoverished women who live to drink beer. The book is set in San Diego during WWII and it is about living life to the fullest without working your life awy. It embraces making do with what you have, eating well but cheaply and not overextending your self so that you can't enjoy life. It is a book that embraces community; in this book you have 3 old women and an old man, you have Chinese, Mexicans, tuna queens (fish factory workers), teachers and secretaries. A bit of this book reminded me of John Steinbeck's book Cannery Row but just not great literature like you expect from John Steinbeck.

What I think the essence of this book is "the community" that one can have with other people and how this book embraced all peoples and classes of people and when you think about this book being written in 1942, that's saying something. The plot is just a simple story of 3 old ladies trying to survive in Noah's Ark (the name of the place Mrs Finey lives). It's a quick read, the e-book was without defects. I think the author chose to write as a way of getting by while she waited for her husband to return from th e war. The book is humorous. Because it is so much about drinking "cases of beer", living in a junkyard with a fence of beer cans, I think it makes the book a bit quirky and will give it that tag as well. ( )

For as long as I can remember,my mother always had all Lasswell's books on her shelf, including One Arm Cookery. She called them "The Feeley Books" after the central character, Mrs. Feeley. She kept them because whenever she was feeling low she would read one and the three old ladies with their optimistic common sense and cold beers always picked up her spirits. I don't know what she did with this collection, but I am starting my own collection now. These are timeless stories about human kindness in hard times. They are funny and filled with humanity. ( )

The adventures of two widows and a spinster who throw in together to live in San Diego during World War II. It's rather a fluffy and light story overall; the challenges the ladies face in the book seem rather glossed over, e.g., going to work in a tuna cannery to earn enough money to pay off a delinquent tax bill. There was certainly room for either more narrative tension or more comedy to be added to the book.

Suds is very much a period piece, particularly in its depictions of non-Anglo characters. On the other hand, I don't think Lasswell was intentionally writing racist characters, only unwilling to recognize (or perhaps just unconscious of) some paternalistic assumptions about other cultures. Still, making allowance for a different time and culture, this is an enjoyable summer read. ( )