Rococo - Paperback

by Adriana Trigiani (Author)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - One small Italian American town in America gets the makeover it never expected in this "eccentric, unpredictable, entertaining" (The Boston Globe) novel from the author of the beloved Big Stone Gap series

"An artfully designed tale [with] characters so lively they bounce off the page [and] wit so subtle that even the best jokes seem effortless."--People

Front Jacket

New York Times bestselling author Adriana Trigiani, beloved by millions of readers around the world for her humor, warmth, and captivating storytelling in the Big Stone Gap trilogy and Lucia, Lucia, takes on love, lust, tricky family dynamics, and home decorating in Rococo, the uproarious tale of a small Italian American town poised for a makeover it never expected.
Bartolomeo di Crespi is the acclaimed interior decorator of Our Lady of Fatima, New Jersey. To date, Bartolomeo has hand-selected every chandelier, sconce, and ottoman in OLOF, so when the renovation of the local church is scheduled, he assumes there is only one man for the job.
From the dazzling shores of New Jersey to the legendary fabric houses of New York City, from the prickly purveyors of fine art in London to luscious Santa Margherita on the Mediterranean coast of Italy, Bartolomeo is on a mission to bring talent, sophistication, and his aesthetic vision to his hometown.
Trigiani's glittering mosaic of small-town characters sparkles: Bartolomeo's hilarious sister, Toot, is in desperate need of a postdivorce transformation-thirteen years after the fact; "The Benefactor," Aurelia Mandelbaum, the richest woman in New Jersey, has a lust for French interiors and a long-held hope that Bartolomeo will marry her myopic daughter, Capri; Father Porporino, the pastor with a secret, does his best to keep a lid on a simmering scandal; and Eydie Von Gunne, the chic international designer, steps in and changes the course of Bartolomeo's creative life, while his confidante, cousin Christina Menecola, awaits rescue from an inconsolable grief.
Plaster of Paris, polished marble, and unbridled testosterone arrive inbuckets when Bartolomeo recruits Rufus McSherry, a strapping, handsome artist, and Pedro Allercon, a stained-glass artisan, to work with him on the church's interior. Together, the three of them will do more than blow the dust off the old Fatima frescoes-they will turn the town upside down, challenge the faithful, and restore hope where there once was none.
Brilliantly funny and as fanciful as flocked wallpaper, filled with glamorous locales from New Jersey to Europe, from Sunday Mass to the American Society of Interior Designers soiree at the Plaza Hotel, Rococo is Trigiani's masterpiece, a classic comedy with a heart of gold leaf.

Author Biography

Adriana Trigiani is an award-winning playwright, television writer, and documentary filmmaker. The author of the bestselling Big Stone Gap trilogy, the New York Times bestselling novels Lucia, Lucia and The Queen of the Big Time, and co-author of the cookbook Cooking with My Sisters, Trigiani has written the screenplay for the movie Big Stone Gap, which she will also direct. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter, and is at work on her next Big Stone Gap novel.