Overview
"A playful book, full of fun and games. There is so much pleasure to be had from Hamilton-Paterson's delight in language and wicked way with unreliable narrators. . . . The book's effect is achieved almost entirely through the comic magnetism of a single character."-The Times Literary Supplement
"A skillful, highly original writer. . . . The elegant language, witty asides and vivid observations are memorable."-The Literary Review
"I'm bowled over by the sheer imaginative brilliance of the man."-Barry Humphries
"I love his elegant and intensely evocative style: strangeness lifts off his pages like a rare perfume."-J.G. Ballard
"A work of comic genius."-The Independent
"A wonderfully rich alloy of sub-Wildean witticisms and nonsense, Cooking with Fernet Branca had me laughing out loud and uproariously."-Ian Thomson, Sunday Telegraph
Gerald Samper, an effete English snob, has his own private hilltop in Tuscany, where he wiles away his time working as a ghostwriter for celebrities and inventing wholly original culinary concoctions-including ice cream made with garlic and the bitter, herb-based liqueur of the book's title. Gerald's idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, on the run from a crime-riddled former soviet republic. A series of hilarious misunderstandings brings this odd couple into ever closer and more disastrous proximity.
James Hamilton-Paterson's first novel, Gerontius, won the Whitbread Award. He is an acclaimed author of nonfiction books, including Seven-Tenths, Three Miles Down, and Playing with Water. He currently lives in Italy.
Synopsis
"A playful book, full of fun and games. There is so much pleasure to be had from Hamilton-Paterson's delight in language and wicked way with unreliable narrators. . . . The book's effect is achieved almost entirely through the comic magnetism of a single character."-The Times Literary Supplement
"A skillful, highly original writer. . . . The elegant language, witty asides and vivid observations are memorable."-The Literary Review
"I'm bowled over by the sheer imaginative brilliance of the man."-Barry Humphries
"I love his elegant and intensely evocative style: strangeness lifts off his pages like a rare perfume."-J.G. Ballard
"A work of comic genius."-The Independent
"A wonderfully rich alloy of sub-Wildean witticisms and nonsense, Cooking with Fernet Branca had me laughing out loud and uproariously."-Ian Thomson, Sunday Telegraph
Gerald Samper, an effete English snob, has his own private hilltop in Tuscany, where he wiles away his time working as a ghostwriter for celebrities and inventing wholly original culinary concoctions-including ice cream made with garlic and the bitter, herb-based liqueur of the book's title. Gerald's idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, on the run from a crime-riddled former soviet republic. A series of hilarious misunderstandings brings this odd couple into ever closer and more disastrous proximity.
James Hamilton-Paterson's first novel, Gerontius, won the Whitbread Award. He is an acclaimed author of nonfiction books, including Seven-Tenths, Three Miles Down, and Playing with Water. He currently lives in Italy.
The Washington Post - Michael Dirda
The wide-ranging James Hamilton-Paterson has published all sorts of books, from Gerontius , a Whitbread Award-winning novel about the composer Elgar, to a study of Ferdinand Marcos. His prose is always original and extremely winning, and he himself lives in Italy, to which, among other things, Cooking with Fernet Branca is a sly love letter.
Editorials
Dawn Drzal
Gerald's highly embroidered rendering of his rival's fractured English is one of the book's best running gags, but his true creativity is reserved for the kitchen. He's never happier than when belting out spoofs of arias while whipping up a batch of, say, Garlic and Fernet Branca Ice Cream with which to repel his intrusive neighbor.— The New York Times
Michael Dirda
The wide-ranging James Hamilton-Paterson has published all sorts of books, from Gerontius , a Whitbread Award-winning novel about the composer Elgar, to a study of Ferdinand Marcos. His prose is always original and extremely winning, and he himself lives in Italy, to which, among other things, Cooking with Fernet Branca is a sly love letter.— The Washington Post