Meeting Luciano: A Novel - Hardcover

Esaki-Smith, Anna

3.4

161 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1565122151 ISBN 13: 9781565122154

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 1999

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To Hanako Shimoda, recently divorced, Luciano Pavarotti is a god. To her daughter, Emily, this fixation on Pavarotti is a harmless fantasy, the byproduct of loneliness. Meeting Luciano is the story of what happens when Hanako acts on her fantasy and invites opera star Pavarotti to dinner in their Westchester County home.

Emily, with no real career plan, has gone back after college to work at her old summer job - waiting tables at the local Japanese steakhouse. Even worse than wearing a fake kimono and obi is that she's living at home with her mother. At first, her mom seems pretty much her old self - still reliving her Japanese childhood; still affecting the airs of a European sophisticate; still brewing espresso, cooking Italian, and singing arias from Rigoletto while she cleans; still idolizing Luciano Pavarotti.

But when Hanako hires Alex, a handsome Greek, to renovate the kitchen, Emily begins to worry. And when Alex, who seems to be getting very cozy with her mother, spills the secret that the renovation is in preparation for a visit from Pavarotti, Emily is thrown into a wonderfully familiar quandary: how to deal with a parent who might be losing it.

First-time novelist Anna Esaki-Smith has a wry, understated approach to the themes of assimilation, growing up, striking out on shaky ground, finding yourself - and loving your mother. Like a reflecting pool in a Japanese garden, Meeting Luciano gradually reveals the beauty of its subtle design.

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From the Inside Flap:

After graduating from college, Emily Shimoda moves back home in upstate New York to live with her eccentric, well-bred mother, Hanako. Little has changed there. Her father's silk ties still hang limply in the closet even though he left years ago, and Hanako busies her days in relentless pursuit of all things European--especially opera. But when Hanako returns from a Pavarotti concert proclaiming that the opera star himself has promised to visit their home, Emily is amused. Until Hanako hires Alex, an aging, widowed carpenter to renovate the house for Pavarotti's imminent arrival--provoking Emily to seriously question her mother's sanity.

As the remodeling consumes Hanako's every waking moment, along with a growing friendship with Alex, Emily grows suspicious of the handyman and the home improvements that her mother haphazardly pours her money into. But as Emily charts the course of her mother's odd preoccupation, and begins to wonder if Pavarotti will indeed make an appearance, she inadvertently finds herself learning some of life's most profound lessons. . . .

From the Back Cover:

"A richly textured tale of love, disappointment, family ties, and the ways in which our fantasies can sustain us . . . A charming debut."
--DANI SHAPIRO
Author of Slow Motion

"SUBLIME . . . Like the steakhouse where Emily works, which was built without a single nail, Esaki-Smith's first novel is a precisely constructed work of art, and your pleasure in discovering its multiple layers will have you singing her praises."
--Newsday

"HEARTFELT . . . WILL PAVAROTTI ACTUALLY SHOW UP? THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION IS DELIGHTFULLY UNEXPECTED."
--Publishers Weekly

"DELECTABLE, BRIMMING WITH GOOD FOOD, GOOD MUSIC, GOOD WRITING. I LOVED IT."
--HISAYE YAMAMOTO
Author of Seventeen Syllables

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