Cooking With Fernet Branca

Neighbours' lives entwine disastrously - and the English obsession with Tuscany is satirised mercilessly - in James Hamilton-Paterson’s comic novel.

Gerald Samper, an effete Englishman, lives on a hilltop in Tuscany. He is a ghostwriter for celebrities, and a foodie, whose weird tastes include 'Mussels in Chocolate and Garlic' and 'Fernet Branca Ice Cream'. His idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, a vulgar woman from a former Soviet republic now run by gangsters. Who mostly turn out to be male members of her family...

"(W)ickedly witty (.....) The plot is highly ingenious, completely wacky, and largely irrelevant. What is crucial to a piece like this is tone of voice, and with both Gerald and Marta we know that we're in safe hands from the beginning. While their names might suggest a duel by Edward Albee out of Beverley Nichols, the effect is of a classic Fred and Ginger duet: bitter-sweet and stylish, slightly edgy, expertly choreographed, moving forward at a perfect tempo, and never putting a foot wrong."  -   Michael Dibdin, The Guardian

James Hamilton-Paterson is often described as a literary loner - a refined prose stylist who, although English-born, has spent most of his life outside the mainstream in the Philippines and Tuscany. What this has meant over the years is that he has followed his own instincts, writing poetry, non-fiction and children’s books as well as fiction and a regular magazine column on maritime matters.