Lambrusco

February 11, 2008
In this heartfelt if uneven portrayal of a widow’s wartime struggles, Cooney captures the chaos visited upon the Italian countryside during WWII. Lucia Fantini, renowned for her operatic performances in the family restaurant, finds herself on a mission to find her son, Beppi, who went into hiding after blowing up a German tank. In her travels, she crosses paths with an American woman, a former golf champion who is part of army intelligence; distant neighbors whose homes have been bombed; and people who have been involved with the restaurant. Cooney takes great pains to capture the individual idiosyncrasies of the characters, but the many competing personalities dilute Lucia’s story. Flashbacks appear frequently, and though some are illuminating, the combination of recollections, the present story and Lucia’s occasional delusions (one minute, bombs are falling, the next, Lucia is having a conversation with Verdi and Puccini over who is the greater musician) lacks balance. Still, Cooney (A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies
) accomplishes her task of portraying, on a very personal level, the moxie and individuality of the Italian villagers as they face the challenges of war.

April 1, 2008
For years, the sparkling wine of the title flowed freely at Aldo's restaurant on the Italian Adriatic coast, and splendid opera selections performed by his wife, Lucia, were as popular as the food. Now in wartime 1943, fascists control Aldo's, and Lucia is a middle-aged widow worried about her son Beppi, a leader of anti-Mussolini partisans (who include Lucia and Aldo's wait staff). When Beppi goes missing after a daring solo attack, Lucia determines to locate him and get him to safety. Her travels through the fog of war are aided by a varied cast of old and new friends, including her perhaps "too" beloved physician cousin-in-law and an American female intelligence officer whose past as a golf champion includes some unsporting details. This promising material moves the plot along, but Cooney ("A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies") undermines it with Lucia's often curiously flat narrative voice, her unconvincing dialogs with the deceased Aldo, and underexplored digressions into past events. Buy for comprehensive collections and where World War II fiction is in high demand.Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2008
Arias and antipasto prove to be the saving graces that keep beloved amateur opera singer Lucia Fantini, widow of an Italian village restaurateur, from succumbing to the desolation and destruction wrought by the combined forces of the German invasion and Italian Fascists during World War II. When Lucias son, Beppi, disappears after bombing a German tank, Lucia sets out to discover her sons whereabouts with the help of her restaurants motley staff and an equally colorful cast of family, friends, former lovers, and villagers. Forced to evade both the Nazis and Mussolinis Blackshirts, the ragtag group receives surprising assistance from Annmarie Malone, an enigmatic American woman sent by the U.S. Army to help Beppi and his underground brigade. As they travel the countryside from one devastated village to another, Lucia and her entourage must confront the horrors of war on both grand and personal levels. Cooneys darkly comic journey of revelation triumphantly demonstrates the sustaining power of love, duty, family, and friendship.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)