Tomato Rhapsody: A Fable of Love, Lust & Forbidden Fruit

Author: Adam Schell
Details info: EPUB, MOBI, 352 pages, English
Size: 936.87 kB

From the very beginning of Schell's debut novel, a would-be Shakespearean fable set in a 16th-century Tuscan village, food lust takes center stage. While cruel-hearted olive tycoon Giuseppe and his underling, Benito, forage for truffles, the Jewish farmer Davido worships the tomato plants on his farm: the plant's fragrance... transcended his olfactory organs to purify his heart and cleanse his mind. When the new priest allows Davido's love apples into town for the first time, life starts to get complicated. For one, the stepdaughter of our villain, Giuseppe, falls for the already betrothed Davido an outcast besides, due to his station and religion. Bawdy hijinks coded in ribald Italian reach a climax at the village's Feast of the Drunken Saint donkey race, a jarring spin on Shakespeare's more tawdry rhymes. Attempts at a similarly Shakespearean cast of characters (the novel opens with an actual cast of characters) instead result in a silly collection of one dimensional characters who keep the tale moving until the fate of our star-crossed lovers, and of tomato sauce, are predictably resolved.