Adriana Trigiani, is author of the Trilogy:"Big Stone Gap", "Big Cherry Holler",
and "Milk Glass Moon", that deals with the tension between personal growth
and relationships.

In "Lucia, Lucia", Trigiani deals substantially with the "pull" between the "extended"
Italian American family/neighborhood, and the "outside" world, in NY in the '50s,
and is very positive portrayal of an Italian American family.

One small complaint. The Press Release states "Forced to choose between duty to her family and her own dreams", ACTUALLY seems to be a choice between a POOR childhood sweetheart, and a RICH stranger who promises a life of uptown luxury.

Who wins?? Love or Money??? :)
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Not yet available on OSIA Book Club Site. But two other highly recommended books are, along with "Big Stone Gap".

"Under the Southern Sun" by Paul Paolicelli (St. Martin's Press)

A non-fiction work about the southern Italian values brought here by the early immigrants that help shape today's Italian Americans.

"Street Boys" by Lorenzo Carcaterra (Ballantine Books)

A fictionalized version of a true episode during World War II when the people of Naples, including the street urchins or scugnizzi, drove the Nazis out of their city.
Order Sons of Italy in America
http://www.osia.org/public/culture/book_club.asp
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Thanks to Dona DeSanctis, Deputy Director, OSIA

Talented Adriana Trigiani has done it again!  Her new novel, "Lucia, Lucia" presents another smart and talented  Italian American woman at the center of a fast moving story.  Lucia Sartori is a young woman torn between her duty and her dreams in 1950 New York City.

LUCIA, LUCIA A Novel ADRIANA TRIGIANI
Press Release: Random House

Praise for Adriana Trigiani and the Big Stone Gap trilogy

"Trigiani is a wonderful storyteller."
-- USA Today

"[Trigiani's] characters [are] the perfect antidote to an angst-filled world."
-- The Denver Post

"As comforting as a mug of chamomile tea on a rainy Sunday."
-- The New York Times Book Review

"Trigiani has created a world well worth visiting and revisiting in her Big Stone Gap series."
-- Bookpage

LUCIA, LUCIA
A Novel
ADRIANA TRIGIANI

Set in the glittering, vibrant New York City of 1950, LUCIA, LUCIA (Random House; $24.95; July, 8 2003) is the enthralling story of a passionate, determined young woman whose decision to follow her heart changes her life forever.

Lucia Sartori is the beautiful twenty-five-year-old daughter of a prosperous Italian grocer in Greenwich Village.  The postwar boom is ripe with opportunities for talented girls with ambition, and Lucia becomes an apprentice to an up-and-coming designer at chic B. Altman's department store on Fifth Avenue.  Engaged to her childhood sweetheart, the steadfast Dante DeMartino, Lucia is torn when she meets a handsome stranger who promises a life of uptown luxury that career girls like her only read about in the society pages.  Forced to choose between duty to her family and her own dreams, Lucia finds herself in the midst of a sizzling scandal in which secrets are revealed, her beloved career is jeopardized, and the Sartori's honor is tested.

Lucia is surrounded by richly drawn New York characters, including her best friend, the quick-witted fashion protégé Ruth Kaspian; their boss, Delmarr, B. Altman's head designer and glamorous man-about-town; her devoted brothers, Roberto, Orlando, Angelo and Exodus, self-appointed protectors of the jewel of the family; and her doting father, Antonio.

Filled with the warmth and humor that have earned Adriana Trigiani hundreds of thousands of devoted readers with her Big Stone Gap trilogy, LUCIA, LUCIA also bursts with a New York sensibility that shows the depth and range of this beloved author.  As richly detailed as the couture garments Lucia sews, as emotional as the bonds in her big Italian family, it is the story of one woman who believes that in a world brimming with so much promise, she can-and should be able to - have it all.

More praise for Adriana Trigiani and her Big Stone Gap trilogy

"Everything that really matters is here: humor, romance, wisdom, and drama."
-- The Dallas Morning News

"Delightfully quirky . . . chock-full of engaging, oddball characters
and unexpected plot twists."
-- People

LUCIA, LUCIA
Adriana Trigiani
Random House
On sale date: July 8, 2003
Publication date: July 8, 2003
$24.95
ISBN: 1-4000-6005-2

Contact: Todd Doughty
212/572-4995
tdoughty@randomhouse.com
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Adriana Trigiani grew up in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, in the 1970s. She has honed her storytelling abilities over a decade of writing and producing some of television's top-rated shows, including the groundbreaking Cosby Show. Trigiani is also an award-winning playwright and documentary filmmaker. She lives in New York City with her husband.

Home Page for Adriana Trigiani
http://literati.net/Trigiani/
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Bella Stander Interview:
Like Ave Maria Mulligan, the narrator of her trilogy, (Big Stone Gap, Big Cherry Holler,Milk Glass Moon), Adriana Trigiani grew up in Wise County, Virginia, feeling like a "ferriner." In the late 1960s her family moved from all-Italian Roseto, Pa., to Big Stone Gap in "poverty-stricken Appalachia," so her father could open a garment factory.

At first the six-year-old thought the people in her new hometown were speaking a foreign language. "I couldn't understand that the teacher wasn't a nun," she recalls. "And no uniforms--the kids were all wearing normal clothes!"

Also like Ave Maria, Trigiani graduated from St. Mary's College in Indiana and her mother's people are from Bergamo and Schilpario, Italy. However, the story of the pharmacist and former town spinster is "not my life at all," says the New York-based documentary filmmaker, TV producer and award-winning playwright.
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If your book club would like to talk with Adriana, contact her assistant, Elizabeth Dawson, via email , edawson77@aol
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