Big Cherry Holler

May 14, 2001
Trigiani returns to the rural Virginia of her bestselling debut, Big Stone Gap, with a big-hearted novel that alternates dollops of comfort with moments of folksy charm and stark poignancy. Eight years have passed since self-styled town spinster Ave Mari and miner Jack MacChesney wed. During that time, they've had one daughter, Etta, and lost a son, Joe, to leukemia. Ave's handling of Joe's death strains the marriage. When Jack loses his job and starts a construction company, complete with an attractive supplier named Karen who sets her cap for him, things became shakier. Then Ave visits her family in Italy and faces her own temptation, in the form of hunky Pete Rutledge. Suddenly the serenity of the solid MacChesney marriage is threatened on all sides. Will love keep the pair together? And if love isn't enough, what is? Readers may find the answer to this, the novel's central question, to be anticlimactic. Still, Ave is a spunky and likable narrator; the novel is populated with many of the same characters readers found endearing the first time around; and the story of a mother grappling with grief over the loss of a child is genuinely moving. Big Stone Gap
took place in the '80s; now we're up to the '90s. Can "Ave in the Millennium" be far behind? Readers have faced worse fates. Agent, Suzanne Gluck for ICM. (May 22)Forecast:Few sequels deliver as reliably as this one does, and readers will likely respond accordingly, following the 12-city author tour.

August 6, 2001
"Something is wrong. Something has shifted and the change was so subtle and so quiet that we hardly noticed it. We pull against each other now." Ave Mari is describing her marriage to miner Jack MacChesney after eight years. During that period they had two children: a daughter, Etta, who is now an energetic preteen, and a son, Joe, who died suddenly of leukemia. Joe's death and the sorrow and pain beneath a tranquil surface is the focus of this tale. When the mine closes, Jack loses his job and Ave suspects that he is involved with another woman. She visits her family in Italy for the summer and finds time to gather her thoughts, to question her behavior as well as Jack's. There she meets the handsome Pete Rutledge, and her own fidelity is tested. Trigiani (Big Stone Gap) reads this story convincingly, with the rural Virginia accent of the friendly and earnest Ave. Well-paced and engaging, this deeply felt story invites the listener to reflect on the nature of love. Simultaneous release with the Random House hardcover(Forecasts, May 14).

May 15, 2001
In this sequel to Big Stone Gap (LJ 4/1/00), it's now the late 1980s, and Ave Maria and Jack MacChesney have been married 11 years. They have a ten-year-old daughter, Etta, but lost their younger child, Joe, a few years earlier. This loss and other marital stresses have tested their relationship, but the summer brings on the biggest trial yet. As Jack tries to launch a new construction business in Big Stone Gap, VA, Ave Maria and Etta take off for Italy. While many of the same humorous characters of the first novel reappear here, the tragedy of the death of a child and the chill it can cast on any marriage make this work more somber than its predecessor. Nonetheless, this novel of love and forgiveness delivers its story in a believable manner. Ave Maria remains someone readers would like to know, and Iva Lou, her librarian friend, still has her finger on the pulse of Mars/Venus relationships in this neck of the woods. Recommended for popular fiction collections. Rebecca Sturm Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2001
Just last year Trigiani made her fiction debut with " Big Stone Gap," a funny novel with homespun perspectives on life in a small town. In small towns, not only does everyone know your name, they also probably know more about you than what a city dweller could be comfortable with. It is in Big Cherry Holler where the married Ave Marie and Jack Machesney have settled, not necessarily so happily ever after. They have one child, Etta, but another child died young. This tragedy takes a toll on Jack and Ave Marie's fragile connection. Jack losing his job at the mine sets off a series of other incidents that will test them both. Although readers of " Big Stone Gap" are going to find this novel more serious, they should rest assured that most of the old favorite small-town characters are still there. Catching an earful, usually unsolicited, of their views and advice on life, marriage, and love is a part of the charm of both the predecessor and this follow-up.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)