Adriana Trigiani

Although I’ve loved all of Adriana Trigiani’s books, it was the Big Stone Gap trilogy, her first three books, that made her a “must read” author in my mind. The trilogy begins with the story of a pharmacist, Ave Maria Mulligan, in Big Stone Gap VA. As Big Stone Gap begins, it’s 1978. Ave Marie is age 35 and single – and at a pivotal time of her life -- and readers get to follow her ups and downs. Adriana has written three non-series books since Milk Glass Moon – all wonderful reads – but her fans will be ecstatic to learn another Big Stone Gap book is coming out in September 2006. Many readers put Adriana at the top of their favorite authors’ list and it’s easy to see why. I’d advise readers who haven’t enjoyed the pleasures of reading Adriana Trigiani yet to start at once. (Adriana’s books are the kind you pass along to a friend, then regret it later when you want to re-read it yourself.)

Books

Fiction

Non-Fiction

(2004) Cooking with My Sisters (with Mary Yolanda Trigiani)

Author Profile:

As her squadrons of fans already know, Adriana Trigiani grew up in Big Stone Gap, a coal-mining town in southwest Virginia that became the setting for her first three novels. The Big Stone Gap books feature Southern storytelling with a twist: a heroine of Italian descent, like Adriana, who attended St. Mary's College of Notre Dame, like Adriana. But the series isn't autobiographical -- the narrator, Ave Maria Mulligan, is a generation older than Adriana and, as the first book opens, has settled into small-town spinsterhood as the local pharmacist.

The author, by contrast, has lived most of her adult life in New York City. After graduating from college with a theater degree, she moved to the city and began writing and directing plays (her day jobs included cook, nanny, house cleaner and office temp). In 1988, she was tapped to write for the Cosby Show spinoff A Different World, and spent the following decade working in television and film. When she presented her friend and agent Suzanne Gluck with a screenplay about Big Stone Gap, Gluck suggested she turn it into a novel.

The result was an instant bestseller that won praise from fellow writers along with kudos from celebrities (Whoopi Goldberg is a fan). It was followed by Big Cherry Holler and Milk Glass Moon, which chronicle the further adventures of Ave Maria through marriage and motherhood. People magazine called them "Delightfully quirky... chock full of engaging, oddball characters and unexpected plot twists."

Critics sometimes reach for food imagery to describe Adriana's books, which have been called "mouthwatering as fried chicken and biscuits" (USA Today) and "comforting as a mug of tea on a rainy Sunday" (The New York Times Book Review). Food and cooking play a big role in the lives of Adriana's heroines and their families: Lucia, Lucia, about a seamstress in Greenwich Village in the 1950s, and The Queen of the Big Time, set in an Italian-American community in Pennsylvania, both feature recipes from Adriana's grandmothers. She and her sisters have even co-written a cookbook called, appropriately enough, Cooking With My Sisters: One Hundred Years of Family Recipes, from Bari to Big Stone Gap. It's peppered with anecdotes, photos and family history. What it doesn't have: low-carb recipes. "An Italian girl can only go so long without pasta," Adriana quipped in an interview on GoTriCities.com.

Her heroines are also ardent readers, so it comes as no surprise that book groups love Adriana Trigiani. And she loves them right back. She's chatted with scores of them on the phone, and her website includes photos of women gathered together in living rooms and restaurants across the country, waving Italian flags and copies of Lucia, Lucia.

Adriana, a disciplined writer whose schedule for writing her first novel included stints from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. each morning, is determined not to disappoint her fans. So far, she's produced a new novel each year since the publication of Big Stone Gap.

Profile and Photo from author’s website. Used with permission

Author Website: http://www.adrianatrigiani.com/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriana_Trigiani