John Saturnall's Feast
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- 20,99 €
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- 20,99 €
Publisher Description
From the bestselling author of Lemprière's Dictionary, Lawrence Norfolk is back with an astounding novel of seventeeth-century life, love and war; the story of an orphan who becomes the greatest cook of his age.
The village of Buckland, 1625. A boy and his mother run for their lives. Behind them a mob chants of witchcraft. Taking refuge among the trees of Buccla's Wood, the mother opens her book and tells her son of an ancient Feast kept in secret down the generations. But as exquisite dishes rise from the page, the ground beneath them freezes. That winter, the boy's mother dies.
Taken to Buckland Manor, John is put to work in the house's vast subterranean kitchens where his talent raises him from the scullery to the great house above. A complex dish served to King Charles brings him before Lady Lucretia Fremantle, the headstrong daughter of the house. He must tempt her from her fast.
But both encounters will imperil him. As the Civil War begins and the New Order's fanatical soldiers march, John and Lucretia are thrown together into a passionate struggle for survival. To keep all he holds most dear, John must realise his mother's vision. He must serve the Saturnall Feast.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Food, history, and romance add layers of flavor to Norfolk's (In the Shape of a Boar) lush new novel, his first in a decade, about an accused witch's son who becomes a noble family's "Top Chef" during the English Civil War. Alternating protagonist-hero John Saturnall's charmingly antique recipes with the narrative of his occasionally brutal life, Norfolk depicts 17th-century England as a land savaged by political turmoil and religious persecutors. While just a boy, John runs away with his mother from a village mob, taking refuge in a place known as Buccla's Wood, where she teaches him about the earth's bounty, but then dies before revealing all her secrets. John soon finds himself tied to a saddle and transported across the Vale to Buckland Manor. There, he works his way up from kitchen boy to "Master Cook," his culinary gifts blossoming along with his feelings for Lucretia Fremantle, daughter of the lord of the manor. John and Lucretia revive the feast that brings together highborn and low, rich and poor. Despite their efforts, warring factions manage to cause mayhem at the manor, leaving John with the unhappy task of preparing a wedding banquet for Lucretia and her cruel cousin. Artfully told with folkloric undertones, Norfolk's tale features bruised dreamers seeking sensory respite from their abusers in settings ranging from the kitchen to the battlefield. Known for intellectual prose and complex plots, Norfolk this time out attempts to interweave time and senses, reality and myth, rewarding steadfast readers with savory recipes and a bittersweet upstairs-downstairs love story.
