The Lady in the Palazzo: At Home in Umbria | Marlena de Blasi

The Lady in the Palazzo: At Home in Umbria | Marlena de Blasi | A Wonderful Book!

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The Lady in the Pa...

	The Lady in the Palazzo: At Home in Umbria Marlena de Blasi Algonquin Books, 2006 - 317 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

With the breathless anticipation that seduced her readers to fall in love with Venice and then Tuscany, Marlena de Blasi now takes us on a new journey as she moves with her husband, Fernando, to Orvieto, a large and ancient city in Italy's Umbria. Having neither an edge to a sea nor a face to a foreign land, it's a region less trampled by travelers and, in turn, less accepting of strangers. So de Blasi sets out to establish her niche in this new place and to win over her new neighbors by doing what she does best, cooking her way into their hearts. (Her recipes are included.)

Rich with history and a vivid sense of place, her memoir is by turns romantic and sensual, joyous and celebratory, as she searches for the right balance in this city on the hill, as well as the right home?which turns out to be the former ballroom of a dilapidated sixteenth-century palazzo.

De Blasi meets and makes friends with an array of colorful, memorable characters, including cooks and counts and shepherds and a lone violinist, and their stories, too, become a part of the tapestry of life that she weaves for herself in Orvieto. With a voice full of wonder, she brings to life these engagingly quirky people and the aloof, almost daunting society that exists in Umbria. Not since Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence has a writer so happily succeeded in capturing the essence of a singular place and in creating a feast for readers of all stripes.

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De Blasi does it again!

So many authors do one "hit" book and then start rushing out second-rate sequels to capitalize on the success of the first one. Well, not Marlena D.B. I've enjoyed all three of her books VERY much. The whole saga of dealing with Italian real estate in "Palazzo" is absolutely incredible -- and I loved her portraits of Miranda, Tilde and Edgardo (was that the Count's name?). Anyway, if you liked her other books, you'll like this one, too! Hope she keeps on writing.

A Wonderful Book!

Marlena de Blasi's writing just gets better and better. I loved her first two books but found this latest one the best yet. Marlena's beautiful soul really shines through in her uncontrollable need to befriend, nurture and "feed" people in her new home. Francisco still tries to hold her back and keep her within the cultural norms of Italy, but they both seem to have mellowed. Ms. De Blasi portrays wonderful characters and manages to relate something quite profound in the simple tale of finding a new home in Oriveto.

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The Lady in the Palazzo: At Home in Umbria

A fabulously well written story of their continuing adventures of living in Italy. Her observations of the idiocyncracies of the villages of Tuscany and Umbria are close to the mark and full of humor and "stranger in a strange land" frustration and successes.It is as lovely as her first book about Venice and meeting Fernando, and the recipes are the next thing I will want to try. Marlena gets better and better.

Mediocre writing, but a solid story about Umbria nontheless

When I travel, I enjoy reading novels about the place I'm going to - it adds an extra dimension to all of the new sights and cities. To this end The Lady in the Palazzo was a good book to read about Umbria, with lots of fun anecdotes about the towns and culture of the region. However the writing is run-of-the-mill and at times awkward. For example, in the middle of the book two chapters are devoted to the back stories of the novel's supporting characters. While flashbacks like this can be an interesting literary device, these chapters seemed like they were just randomly and clumsily pasted into the middle of the novel. What's more, the books finale seemed like it was more for the author's benefit than for the readers (I won't spoil it).

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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