Lily Prior With the publication of her first novel, Lily Prior joins the ranks of Elizabeth McCracken, Katherine Dunn and Laura Esquivel, authors who have used culinary metaphors and fantastic or magical story elements to examine creativity, love, family, loss, redemption and the changes wrought by the seasons of life. La Cucina is a delightful, if lightweight, tale about a meek Sicilian girl, Rosa, the quiet and obedient daughter of a lusty peasant couple. By the time she is a teenager, Rosa s savory and pungent cooking skills have achieved legendary stature in her rural community. She has a beau, Bartolomeo, who is beginning to awaken a passion in Rosa for activities outside the kitchen.
Life seems brimming with predictable promise.
Rosa believes that her heart is permanently in eclipse, so she seeks the driest, most stultifying work she can find. In Palermo, Rosa takes a job as a junior library assistant, and there she stays for 25 years, living a repressed and diminished life, putting on weight and rising to the position of librarian in charge of manuscripts. Her only passionate and creative outlet continues to be her extraordinary cooking. On a warm Sicilian spring day, though, a suave Englishman presents his credentials and requests access to the library s collection of ancient culinary manuscripts. Prior's writing approaches carnal love from a jovial, accepting, positive perspective.