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“[An] epic of small-town life . . . A personal saga of American history and a romance woven together with warmth and good humor.”—The Oregonian
In the late 1800s, the residents of a small village in coastal Italy migrated to the promised land of America. They eventually settled in Roseto, Pennsylvania, where they re-created every detail of their former lives, including the centerpiece of Roseto’s colorful old-world tradition: the annual pageant for Our Lady of Mount Caramel—or “the Big Time,” as it’s called by the young women competing to be its Queen.
The industrious Castellucas farm the land outside Roseto. Nella, the middle daughter of five, aspires to a genteel life “in town,” far from the rigors of life on the farm. But her dreams of making her own fortune shift when she meets and falls in love with Renato Lanzaro, a worldly, handsome, devil-may-care poet. When Renato disappears without explanation, Nella is shattered.
Four years later, Renato’s sudden return just before Nella’s wedding to the steadfast Franco Zollerano leaves her shaken. For although Renato has chosen a path very different from Nella’s, they are fated to live and work side by side for the rest of their lives in Roseto, where the past hangs over them like a brewing storm.
Etched in glorious detail in Adriana Trigiani’s trademark style, The Queen of the Big Time is the story of a determined, passionate woman who can never forget her first love.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 31, 2004 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781415951989
- File size: 268666 KB
- Duration: 09:19:43
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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This moving and persuasive family tale of an Italian-American clan in Roseto, Pennsylvania, follows Nella Castelluca from girlhood in the 1920s to her death in the 1980s. Nella is a wonderful character, brave, smart, and apparently indomitable. Her first love disappears, then reappears the week of her wedding day, changed in a way that rocks her. Her plans to go to college and become a teacher are derailed by an accident that nearly kills her father and forces her into factory work to support her family, and yet she thrives. Cassandra Campbell's young, warm, contemporary voice is fine for young Nella. It fails to age as Nella does, but remains very likable, as does Nella herself. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine -
July 12, 2004
Set in early 20th-century smalltown America, Trigiani's fifth novel (after the Big Stone Gap trilogy and Lucia, Lucia
) tells a heartfelt but clumsy story of strong women enduring the rigors of farm life and the trials of romantic and familial relations. At its worst, the novel is a morass of incomplete story lines, underdeveloped characters and inconsistent tenses. Still, readers who've fallen for Trigiani's hallmark personages—Italian immigrants living the American dream in rural Pennsylvania—in previous books will delight in meeting these new ones. Nella Castelluca has brains and ambition; she hopes to someday become a teacher. Alas, when her father is injured at work, she must quit school and stay home to help on the family farm. Her first dream slips away, but working farm life turns out to be not so bad, and Nella eventually falls for the dreamy poet Renato Lanzara. But when he skips town, dream two is crushed, and Nella faces a tough reality: marry another man, and move on. Easier said than done, of course, and Trigiani spends the rest of the book drawing out the saga. Although the writing never rises above B-level, the novel does paint a thorough picture of Italian-American family life and the deep pain of lost love. Agent, William Morris. (July)
Forecast:
Mailings to book clubs and a 13-city author tour should rally Trigiani loyalists, but they may be frustrated by the sloppiness of the author's latest. -
There's a lush loveliness at the core of this sweeping tale of America's multicultural heartland. A first-generation Italian-American family in small-town Pennsylvania is depicted against a backdrop of four decades of the past century. The central character, Nella Castelluca, is a farmer's middle daughter whose aspirations are boundless, but her dreams are dashed, and then reborn. Swirling around her are those timeless components of drama--young love, tragic death, and renewed hope. Adriana Trigiani's narration is perfect. Soft and lilting, it reflects a girlish na•veté that might be out of place in another story. Here, though, it works wonderfully. M.J.B. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
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