Invented in 1897, the patent and the name Jell-O were purchased from its inventor for $450 by an industrialist from Le Roy, New York. Using powdered gelatin, sugar, and chemical colorant, the business was sluggish at first but eventually took off with the invention of the refrigerator and the parallel development of home economics classes in American high schools. Easy to make and easy to eat, Jell-O became synonymous with fun.
For the family that controlled the brand from 1899 to 1927, however, life was not fun. Sold for $67 millions, this wealth and its attendant privileges led to a dissatisfaction with life, a high rate of suicide, many cancers, alcoholism, drug dependence, and mysterious sicknesses that seem to afflict women. Allie's mother, Mary, was born in the family in the 1940s, the second and last child of her parents, who were living in Lima, Peru at the time.
Returning to New York, Mary quickly learned to be quiet and not voice her opinion. The family was supposed to be perfect, and this led Mary to lose her sense of identity. When her mother died at 45 of cancer, Mary found herself without anchors, and regretted not acquiescing to her mother's wishes that she not be taken away from her home at the end of her life. Plagued by regrets, Mary determined to lead a different life, but eventually built similar structures that oppressed her daughter's own life.
The Jell-O curse, as it became known in the family, affected everyone in different ways, but contributed to make the extended family dysfunctional. Mary never gave up studying this curse, and trying to find a remedy for it. When she died, Allie inherited the book that Mary had been working on for years, and completed the project.
Mirrored with the affliction that affected 10 teen girls from Le Roy in 2012, Jell-O Girls explores what happened to Allie and her family, and how Jell-O shaped both America and them for the better, and for the worst.
As an aside, the novel Conversion was inspired from the events that happened in Le Roy in 2012.
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