Tomato Rhapsody

April 13, 2009
From the very beginning of Schell's debut novel, a would-be Shakespearean fable set in a 16th-century Tuscan village, food lust takes center stage. While cruel-hearted olive tycoon Giuseppe and his underling, Benito, forage for truffles, the Jewish farmer Davido worships the tomato plants on his farm: “the plant's fragrance... transcended his olfactory organs to purify his heart and cleanse his mind.” When the new priest allows Davido's “love apples” into town for the first time, life starts to get complicated. For one, the stepdaughter of our villain, Giuseppe, falls for the already betrothed Davido—an outcast besides, due to his station and religion. Bawdy hijinks coded in ribald Italian reach a climax at the village's Feast of the Drunken Saint donkey race, a jarring spin on Shakespeare's more tawdry rhymes. Attempts at a similarly Shakespearean cast of characters (the novel opens with an actual cast of characters) instead result in a silly collection of one-dimensional characters who keep the tale moving until the fate of our star-crossed lovers, and of tomato sauce, are predictably resolved.

May 15, 2009
It takes a lot of confidence to encroach on Shakespearean territory, but Schell displays sufficient moxie in this delectable debut. The lush Tuscan countryside is the predictable yet appropriate setting of his sixteenth-century romp through a multitude of humorous scenarios involving both forbidden love and the introduction of the tomato into the heart, soul, and stomach of the Italian populace. At the core of the novel is a deceptively simple boy-meets-girl plot featuring a lovelorn Jewish tomato farmer and the beautiful Catholic daughter of a devious olive magnate. Of course, anyone who knows their Shakespeare knows that the course of true love never runs smoothly, and Schell displays the finesse of a master chef as he spices up the story with a delicious array of humorous subplotsranging from the bawdy to the sweetguaranteed to appeal to discerning literary palates.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)