Adriana Trigiani, author of the hugely popular BIG STONE GAP trilogy, returns with a much-anticipated stand-alone novel, LUCIA, LUCIA. Set in 1950s New York City, LUCIA, LUCIA is a tale far removed from Trigiani's familiar rural Blue Ridge Mountain setting so lovingly portrayed in BIG STONE GAP, but it is, in its own way, a love letter to a unique time and place as only Trigiani can write.
LUCIA, LUCIA opens in modern day Greenwich Village when Kit Zanetti, a struggling young playwright, is invited to tea by her elderly upstairs neighbor "Aunt Lu." Out of a polite respect, Kit feels obligated to accept but isn't particularly thrilled with the prospect of spending an entire afternoon with the older woman. Her mind is quickly changed when she enters Lu's apartment for the first time and discovers a "chintz wonderland" filled with the fabulous knick-knacks of a long and interesting life. When Kit inquires about the gorgeous full-length mink coat she spies hanging on a dressmaker's mannequin tucked back in an alcove, Lu begins her story.
Born the youngest child, and only girl, in a large and boisterous Italian family, 25-year-old Lucia Sartori is the crown jewel of the Sartori family. Besides being the most beautiful girl in Greenwich Village, Lucia is also a bright and successful career girl in a time when opportunities were just beginning to present themselves to women. She is happily employed by upscale B. Altman's department store as a seamstress in their custom department, apprenticing to Delmarr, an up-and-coming young designer waiting for his big break. Lucia still lives in the attic-level bedroom where she grew up but is soon to be married to her childhood sweetheart, Dante DiMartino, son of the local baker.
Plans for the upcoming nuptials are sailing along smoothly un