For the last fifteen minutes, I've been washing dishes and trying
to come up with some clever, pithy phrase with which to start off
this review. An interior design pun? Some cute witticism or an
Italian-esque bon mot? (Can a bon mot, by definition,
even BE Italianesque?!?) Forget it. Forget everything. Let me just
say this and get it over with: I LOVE ADRIANA TRIGIANI.

There are writers who inspire you in a profound way. There are
writers you wish you had as teachers in English Lit 101, and there
are writers you want to sit across from at some fabulously
expensive restaurant listening to them expound upon Their Craft.
Adriana Trigiani is none of these. This is a woman you want to cook
with. This is a woman you want to have come over for coffee, and
you don't mind letting her in even if your kitchen isn't spotless
and you're having a bad hair day. And she's the only writer I know
who can create the most ridiculous situations full of completely
unrealistic characters, and make it all so darn cozy and
interesting and inviting that you never want to leave and you'll
willingly believe every word on the page for as long as it
lasts.

ROCOCO is exactly this kind of novel. Revolving around a very
talented small-town (Our Lady of Fatima, New Jersey, to be exact)
interior designer named Bartolomeo di Crespi (who goes by "B"),
it's a little story --- no real high drama here --- that, at its
heart, is about family and faith.

Bartolomeo is the one --- and only --- designer in Our Lady of
Fatima, and everyone who's anyone in town has a home that shows off
his artistic flair. He's happily single, although definitely not
lacking in female companionship, and his biggest challenge is
artfully dodging the clutches of Aurelia Mandelbaum, the richest
woman in New Jersey, who's desperately hoping he'll marry her
wallflower daughter, Capri. Bartolomeo is a Good Italian Boy, loyal
to family --- his sister Toot's family of characters has enough
issues to fill a week's worth of Oprah --- and he's a practicing
Catholic, loyal to "RC Incorporated." So when his hometown church
is finally up for restoration, he's determined to land his Dream
Job and bring his Artistic Vision to Our Lady of Fatima, New
Jersey.

Naturally, the course of Great Design never did run smooth, and
Bartolomeo's project is a challenge from the first. The parish
priest, Father Porporino, stirs up a hornet's nest by recommending
another design firm; the money to do the renovation has some
interesting strings attached to it, and the creative geniuses
Bartolomeo finds to help him bring his Vision to reality may very
well be his --- and the town's --- undoing.

But all the drama is manageable --- this isn't a novel about high
conflict, it's really a novel about family. B's relationships with
his sister and nephews, as well as with his dearest friend
Christina and his "fiancée" Capri, are the heartbeat of
ROCOCO. And while there's plenty of peccadilloes to go around,
Trigiani somehow manages to avoid taking too-easy potshots at the
Catholic Church: the flesh may be weak, but B's faith --- in the
Church that raised him and in his own talents, his family, and his
heart --- is strong indeed and genuinely touching, and reminds us
that miracles can, and do, happen.

As with LUCIA, LUCIA and THE QUEEN OF THE BIG TIME, Trigiani is a
master at creating fanciful characters who feel like friends. Her
small-town portraits are clearly fictional, yet so rooted in truths
and crafted with such loving detail that you end up wishing you
could visit. Leaving no swatch unturned --- there's enough design
details in ROCOCO to fill the appetite of the most enthusiastic
would-be designer --- Trigiani delivers yet again with a novel that
is sure to satisfy.