The Onion Ring Lovers (Guide to Vermont)

A family's dark secrets simmer beneath a quirky Vermont travelogue.

When Jim Sutton returns to Vermont after twenty-two years to research a quirky travel guide about onion rings, he thinks he can keep his past buried on Christmas Island. But between a crumbling Ford Festiva, a vengeful town meeting, and Cammy Norman—a mechanic with blue eyes and a knowing smile—his carefully planned road trip becomes something else entirely.

As Jim crisscrosses the state in search of the perfect fried ring, memories of his family's troubled history rise unbidden: his mother Linda's desperate attempts to hold things together, his father's secrets, and the claustrophobic island life they fled. The further Jim travels into Vermont's mountains and valleys, the closer he gets to the truth he's been avoiding.

This new edition explores family dysfunction, nostalgia, and the search for belonging through the unlikely lens of roadside food. With prose as rich as Vermont's maple syrup and humor as biting as a winter wind off Lake Champlain, The Onion Ring Lover's Guide to Vermont asks whether we can ever truly go home again—and whether the stories we tell ourselves about the past can nourish us or only leave us hungry.