John Saturnall's Feast - Hardcover

Norfolk, Lawrence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802120881 ISBN 13: 9780802120885

Publisher: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press, 2012

Synopsis

Twelve years in the writing, one of England's greatest living historical novelists has produced his most accessible and accomplished book to date. A beautiful, rich and sensuous historical novel, John Saturnall's "Feast" tells the story of a young orphan who becomes a kitchen boy at a manor house, and rises through the ranks to become the greatest Cook of his generation. It is a story of food, star-crossed lovers, ancient myths and one boy's rise from outcast to hero. It is the early 17th century, and John Saturnall is a young boy growing up in the village of Buckland. He is bullied by other children, who claim that his mother is a witch. When many of the children in the village are struck down with a sickness, John's mother is blamed, and he and she are chased out of the village. They go and live a hermit-like life in a nearby wood, where it is said a witch called Buccla once grew a legendary garden. Giving what little they find to eat to her son, John's mother dies of starvation, but sees to it that John be taken in at the Buckland Manor house, where he begins working in the kitchens. At the Manor, John quickly rises from kitchen-boy to Cook, and is known for his uniquely keen palate and natural cooking ability. However, he quickly gets on the wrong side of Lady Lucretia, the aristocratic daughter of the Lord of the Manor. In order to inherit the estate, Lucretia must wed, but her fiance is an arrogant buffoon whose face Lucretia thinks resembles a water-parsnip. When Lucretia takes on a vow of hunger until her father calls off her engagement to her insipid husband-to-be, it falls to John to try to cook her delicious foods that might tempt her to break her fast. As John serves meals to Lucretia, the pair forget their differences and become close, but fate is conspiring against them. Lucretia's betrothement cannot be undone, and soon the household is thrown into chaos as Cromwell's Roundheads go to war with the loyalist Cavaliers. Reminiscent of "Wolf Hall", Gould's "Book of Fish" and "The Debt to Pleasure", John Saturnall's "Feast" is a brilliant work from a writer at the top of his powers, and a delight for all the senses.

About this title

Review:

A brilliant, erudite tale of cookery and witchcraft in 1681 -- A.S. Byatt * Guardian, Books of the Year * Lawrence Norfolk is a genius * Louis de Bernieres * Glorious ... The whole book is an extended fantasia on the idea of taste itself. Like all the best historical novels, John Saturnall's Feast is not just a novel set in some point in history ... but a novel about how histories infect stories -- Stuart Kelly * The Times * Lawrence Norfolk is just about ahead of everyone in his generation of English novelists * Observer * As vivid as it is mouth-watering ... This glorious, multilayered banquet of a book is clever and finely wrought, and the prose, steeped in the arcane language of 17th-century cuisine, brings it vividly and sensually to life * Metro * Scrumptious foodie tale of a low-born master cook and his survival -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent Books of the Year * In Norfolk's skilful hands, there is no danger of verbal indigestion. John Saturnall's Feast is the most accessible of his works. A grown-up fairy tale ... Fantastical architecture and weird botany are a vivid background to the bloody conflict and swooning romance. Norfolk is an expert on obscure sources as well as sauces. His blend of horrid history and oddly credible fantasy deserves to be consumed by the masses * Sunday Telegraph * Witchcraft, cookery and war in seventeenth-century England ... from the master of the historical behemoth * Guardian * A lyrical tale of historical havoc set in the English Civil War, with cookery as salvation. Class, war and folk tales are the themes of this ambitious, elegant novel * Marie Claire * A fabulous novel. I was totally wrapped up in it, reading it on planes and trains and automobiles when it really should be read in front of a roaring fire with a huge mug of claret. It does what he has always done, which is wrap you totally into a world; utterly convincingly into that world ... extremely, extremely moving -- Alex Preston * BBC Radio 4, Saturday Review * A triumph of technique but it's also a very affecting work, a magical one, a banquet for the thinking reader, a sensuous delight. Lay hands on a copy and read it as soon as you may and you'll find something truly worth savouring - every image, every detail, inspired, its full and fascinating depths inviting exploration and providing pleasure of the most satisfying kind * Cornflower Blog * On the cusp of an autumn glut, the publication of a novel about a sublime cook in a great house 380 years ago is perfectly timed ... The kitchen vocabulary is rich, and Norfolk relishes it ... the feast itself is a triumph * The Lady * One of the finest novels of the Nineties ... Lempriere's Dictionary is a novel quite comparable in scale, intelligence and literary playfulness to the work of Thomas Pynchon or Umberto Eco * Malcolm Bradbury, The Modern British Novel 1878-2001 * A welcome return from one of the deepest historical novelists around ... it sings ... delectable -- Hermione Eyre * Evening Standard *

Book Description:

From the bestselling author of Lemprière's Dictionary, Lawrence Norfolk is back with an astounding new historical novel

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0802120881
• ISBN 13: 9780802120885
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416