Costco Connection - September 2012

book pıck
A dance with fate

FRANCEFREEMAN

Adriana Trigiani unfurls the epic tale
of her grandparents’ love story
COSTCO HAS 50 SIGNED COPIES of Adriana
Trigiani’s The Shoemaker’s Wife to give
away. To enter, go to Costco.com, search for
“SepBookPick” and follow the instructions.
Or print your name, address and daytime
phone number on a postcard or letter and
send it to: Adriana Trigiani, The Costco
Connection, P.O. Box 34088, Seattle, WA
98124-1088.

I SOMETIMES worry that how I describe a book might discourage people from reading it. For example, I can truthfully say that this month’s Book Buyer’s Pick, The Shoemaker’s Wife, by Adriana Trigiani, is a sweeping romance—and lose some readers. But it’s an incomplete description.

Inspired by the story of the author’s grandparents, who grew up ;ve miles apart in the Italian Alps but didn’t meet until they were both living in New Jersey, this novel serves as a meaningful piece of historical ;ction in the descriptions of the Italian immigrant experience and life during wartime.

The love ;owing through this book isn’t just the romance between the two main characters, it’s the love Trigiani has for her family, in particular her grandparents. It’s the kind of love that will make you want to leaf through old photo albums, give your parents a call and wish a story this beautiful didn’t have to end.

For more book picks, see page 55.

By Hope Katz Gibbs

“I DON’T KNOW how Adriana Trigiani goes into her family’s attic and emerges with these amazing stories—I’m just happy she does,” attests best-selling author Kathryn Stockett of Trigiani’s newest release, The Shoemaker’s Wife. “If you are meeting her for the first time, get ready for a lifelong love affair.”

Growing Up Funny, garnered an Emmy nomination for Lily Tomlin.

That endorsement from the author of The Help is typical of the buzz around Trigiani’s epic tale of Ciro Lazzari and Enza Ravanelli—the fictional characters who act out the real lives of her grandparents and their sweeping international love affair.

“Those years shaped me as a writer as I learned
from the masters and made a nice living,” Trigiani
tells The Connection, noting that during that period
she also met her husband, Tim Stephenson, the
The story begins in the Italian Alps
in 1905, and takes readers through
New York City in the 1920s, the white-
capped lakes of northern Minnesota
and both world wars.

For fans who have been following Trigiani’s award-winning work for years, this ambitious story is a departure from her first novel, the 2000 hit

TIM STEPHENSON

Adriana Trigiani

Big Stone Gap. In that story, this sassy Italian American with a big sense of humor introduced readers to the equally audacious Ave Maria Mulligan—who, like Trigiani, grew up in a hamlet nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“I would return to this story in
between the work on my other nov-
els and noodle with it,” explains
Throughout the late 1980s and ’90s, the woman
who dreamed of becoming a playwright gained
acclaim instead as an award-winning writer for such
TV mega-hits as The Cosby Show and A Different
World. She was also the executive producer and
head writer for City Kids for Jim Henson
Productions, and her Lifetime television special,

Signed book giveaway

When her fans began telling her at book signings and through email that they wanted something more grandiose in scope than Lucia, Lucia, and Brava, Valentine, Trigiani knew it was time to finally finish the story of her grandparents’ “dance with fate.”

“This is one of those stories that had so many near misses against the landscape of world events that it’s a wonder they got together at all,” the author insists, crediting a team of summer interns and her favorite librarians with helping her get the historic details just right. “The story had to feel fresh, progressive and airy. I wanted my reader to have the experience I had when stories were told to me by my grandmother, the woman who lived them.”

Indeed, it’s hard not to get absorbed in this nearly 500-page saga. And without giving away too much of the poignant ending, this deep, profound romance ends with great loss.

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something beautiful from it, because often in life
t l ic
t w tg u
unfortunately, we can’t have that without walk-
“In the book, I tried to take the pain and make
something beautiful from it, because often in life
that’s all you can do,” Trigiani concludes. “Moving
through the pain is what gives us wisdom—and
unfortunately, we can’t have that without walk-
ing through that fire.” C

FRANCE FREEMAN

Hope Katz Gibbs is a freelance writer in Arlington, Virginia, who has had a signed copy of Big Stone Gap on her bookshelf since meeting Adriana Trigiani in 2000.