| Plot Summary of Sweet and Low: A Family Story |
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"This work of family history traces the story of Ben Eisenstadt and his family of inventors, entrepreneurs, and sometimes less-than-competent businesspeople. Ben, an unsuccessful lawyer in 1950s Brooklyn, sits one day in a greasy spoon diner with his wife, and laments the unsanitary offering of sugar in open bowls and dirty dispensers. Why not put the sugar into individual, portion-controlled packets, he wonders. And so a great idea is born - and borrowed. Eisenstadt lacked the foresight to patent his first invention, and it was subsequently adopted by large food producers.
Eisenstadt's second invention, concocted with his son Marvin, becomes far more lucrative. While the sugar substitute saccharin has been available by prescription to some Americans, Ben and Marvin want to make it more widely available in the nascent American dieting craze as a sort of sugar without sugar's negative consequences. They manage to patent and produce the product, Sweet'N Low, making a fortune in the process. They learn to play the lobbying game, fighting a FDA-backed saccharin ban, and Sweet'N Low nourishes three generations of the Eisenstadt family.
With wealth comes fractiousness, however; indeed, the book's author is a grandson of the family founder. When Marvin, Ben's son, takes over the company from his father, the fate of Sweet'N Low takes a turn for the worse. Competitors, including those responsible for aspartame and sucralose, chip away at Sweet'N Low's market share, but Marvin sees no threat. Mafia-related criminals are hired to work in the senior echelons
of company management, embezzling millions of dollars and bringing on charges of tax evasion. Marvin remains an ambiguous character through all of this: is he aware and complicit, or is he in fact duped by his charismatic managers?
It is a certainty that Marvin's son, Jeff, will assume leadership of the company after his father. As indifferent to the fate of the company as his father was, Jeff continues to run Sweet'N Low, now trailing well behind its competitors in market share, but pursuing no obvious alternative business opportunities. Ultimately, the story of the Eisenstadts, and Sweet'N Low, becomes the story of how a brilliant product - a packaged, no-cal sugar
substitute - launched at the right time - the postwar diet craze - could carry generations of greedy and indifferent family members.
"
Jan Arata, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Sweet and Low: A Family Story |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
job/profession:
- businessman
Job/profession/poverty story
Yes
Food
Yes
Period of greatest activity?
- 1950+
Subject of Biography
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- small businessman
Age:
- 40's-50's
Ethnicity
- Jew
Nationality
- American (!)
How sensitive is this person?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 5 (an average amount)
United States
Yes
The US:
- Northeast
City?
Yes
City:
- New York
Century:
- 1980's-Present
Style
Person
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- no torture/death
Book makes you feel?
- thoughtful
Writer's slant towards subject:
- neutral
Story of entire life, or part?
- story of set of events during life
Is this a biography of several people?
Yes
Pictures/Illustrations?
- A few 1-5 B&W
How much dialogue in bio?
- significantly more dialog than descript
How much of bio focuses on most famous period of life?
- 51%-75% of book
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