Summary | Author | Reviews | Discussion Questions


Big Cherry Holler: A Big Stone Gap Novel
Adriana Trigiani, 2001
272 pp.

In Brief
The second of the Stone Gap quarter.

Fans of Adriana Trigiani’s charmingly quirky novel Big Stone Gap should be delighted with the sequel, Big Cherry Holler, where readers once again hook up with Ave Maria, now entering her eighth year of marriage to Jack. Ave and Jack have weathered some rough times together, including the death of their three-year-old son, Joe. But tougher times are ahead, beginning with the loss of Jack's job and his launching of a new business in which an attractive woman ends up as his adviser and supplier. Ave fears the woman is after far more, and given the strain she’s felt in her marriage lately, she fears Jack might be willing to provide it. Her fears increase when Jack backs out of their planned vacation to Italy and asks for a trial separation. Ave makes the trip without him and, after some serious soul searching, devises a plan to save her floundering marriage -- if only it’s not too late. (From Barnes and Nobel Editors)

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About the Author

• Birth—1960
• Where—Big Stone Gap, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., St. Mary’s College, Indiana, USA
• Currently—lives in New York, New York


As her squadrons of fans already know, Adriana Trigiani grew up in Big Stone Gap, a coal-mining town in southwest Virginia that became the setting for her first three novels. The Big Stone Gap books feature Southern storytelling with a twist: a heroine of Italian descent, like Trigiani, who attended St. Mary's College of Notre Dame, like Trigiani. But the series isn't autobiographical -- the narrator, Ave Maria Mulligan, is a generation older than Trigiani and, as the first book opens, has settled into small-town spinsterhood as the local pharmacist.

The author, by contrast, has lived most of her adult life in New York City. After graduating from college with a theater degree, she moved to the city and began writing and directing plays (her day jobs included cook, nanny, house cleaner and office temp). In 1988, she was tapped to write for the Cosby Show spinoff A Different World, and spent the following decade working in television and film. When she presented her friend and agent Suzanne Gluck with a screenplay about Big Stone Gap, Gluck suggested she turn it into a novel.

The result was an instant bestseller that won praise from fellow writers along with kudos from celebrities (Whoopi Goldberg is a fan). It was followed by Big Cherry Holler and Milk Glass Moon, which chronicle the further adventures of Ave Maria through marriage and motherhood. People magazine called them "Delightfully quirky... chock full of engaging, oddball characters and unexpected plot twists."

Critics sometimes reach for food imagery to describe Trigiani's books, which have been called "mouthwatering as fried chicken and biscuits" (USA Today) and "comforting as a mug of tea on a rainy Sunday" (The New York Times Book Review). Food and cooking play a big role in the lives of Trigiani's heroines and their families: Lucia, Lucia, about a seamstress in Greenwich Village in the 1950s, and The Queen of the Big Time, set in an Italian-American community in Pennsylvania, both feature recipes from Trigiani's grandmothers. She and her sisters have even co-written a cookbook called, appropriately enough, Cooking With My Sisters: One Hundred Years of Family Recipes, from Bari to Big Stone Gap. It's peppered with anecdotes, photos and family history. What it doesn't have: low-carb recipes. "An Italian girl can only go so long without pasta," Trigiani quipped in an interview on GoTriCities.com.

Her heroines are also ardent readers, so it comes as no surprise that book groups love Adriana Trigiani. And she loves them right back. She's chatted with scores of them on the phone, and her Web site includes photos of women gathered together in living rooms and restaurants across the country, waving Italian flags and copies of Lucia, Lucia.

Trigiani, a disciplined writer whose schedule for writing her first novel included stints from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. each morning, is determined not to disappoint her fans. So far, she's produced a new novel each year since the publication of Big Stone Gap.

"I don't take any of it for granted, not for one second, because I know how hard this is to catch with your public," she said in an interview with The Independent. "I don't look at my public as a group; I look at them like individuals, so if a reader writes and says, 'I don't like this,' or, 'This bit stinks,' I take it to heart." Good to Know

Extras
Some fascinating, funny outtakes from a Barnes & Nobel interview with Trigiani: "I appeared on the game show Kiddie Kollege on WCYB-TV in Bristol, Virginia, when I was in the third grade. I missed every question. It was humiliating."

"I have held the following jobs: office temp, ticket seller in movie theatre, cook in restaurant, nanny, and phone installer at the Super Bowl in New Orleans. In the writing world, I have been a playwright, television writer/producer, documentary writer/director, and now novelist."

"I love rhinestones, faux jewelry. I bought a pair of pearl studded clip on earrings from a blanket on the street when I first moved to New York for a dollar. They turned out to be a pair designed by Elsa Schiaparelli. Now, they are costume, but they are still Schiaps! Always shop in the street -- treasures aplenty." (From the publishers.)


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Critics Say. . .
"Something is wrong. Something has shifted and the change was so subtle and so quiet that we hardly noticed it. We pull against each other now." Ave Mari is describing her marriage to miner Jack MacChesney after eight years. During that period they had two children: a daughter, Etta, who is now an energetic preteen, and a son, Joe, who died suddenly of leukemia. Joe's death and the sorrow and pain beneath a tranquil surface is the focus of this tale. When the mine closes, Jack loses his job and Ave suspects that he is involved with another woman. She visits her family in Italy for the summer and finds time to gather her thoughts, to question her behavior as well as Jack's. There she meets the handsome Pete Rutledge, and her own fidelity is tested. Trigiani (Big Stone Gap) reads this story convincingly, with the rural Virginia accent of the friendly and earnest Ave. Well-paced and engaging, this deeply felt story invites the listener to reflect on the nature of love. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Publishers Weekly


In this sequel to Big Stone Gap, it's now the late 1980s, and Ave Maria and Jack MacChesney have been married 11 years. They have a ten-year-old daughter, Etta, but lost their younger child, Joe, a few years earlier. This loss and other marital stresses have tested their relationship, but the summer brings on the biggest trial yet. As Jack tries to launch a new construction business in Big Stone Gap, VA, Ave Maria and Etta take off for Italy. While many of the same humorous characters of the first novel reappear here, the tragedy of the death of a child and the chill it can cast on any marriage make this work more somber than its predecessor. Nonetheless, this novel of love and forgiveness delivers its story in a believable manner. Ave Maria remains someone readers would like to know, and Iva Lou, her librarian friend, still has her finger on the pulse of Mars/Venus relationships in this neck of the woods. Recommended for popular fiction collections. Rebecca Sturm Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal

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Book Club Discussion Questions
1. Big Cherry Holler is a sequel to the bestselling Big Stone Gap. Does it help to read Big Stone Gap before delving into Big Cherry Holler? How did the author structure this book as a stand-alone novel, and how does it function as a continuation of the first book?

2. What is the significance of the title Big Cherry Holler,
both literally and figuratively?

3. When the book opens, Ave Maria and Jack Mac have been married for eight years. How have her attitudes about herself and about relationships changed during that time? How has she remained a "spinster" in spirit?

4. Early in the book, it's disclosed that Jack and Ave's son, Joe, died after a sudden illness. In what ways do Jack and Ave deal with his death, both separately and together? How does their marriage bear the scars of their son's untimely death?

5. What role does small-town life--both in Italy and in Big
Stone Gap--play in Ave's life? How do the mammoth
physical attributes of the outside world play against her life?

6. Ave Maria sees Jack Mac chatting with a tanned, blond
woman named Karen Bell, and immediately feels anxious. What evidence of marital estrangement accumulates after that incident? What aspects of Karen's personality do you think would appeal to Jack Mac?

7. How does Ave Maria see Karen Bell as a rival, and in
which ways does she feel superior to her? Which feeling
ultimately proves more accurate?

8. Were you surprised by the revelation of Theodore's homosexuality? Which clues--both in this book and in Big
Stone Gap--are provided beforehis confession? How do
you think this will affect his relationship with Ave?

9. When Ave's protege, Pearl, pleads with Ave to become a partner in the pharmacy, she signs on without consulting Jack Mac (much to his chagrin). What other decisions in her life does Ave keep to herself? Is Jack justified in his anger, or does he, too, keep some aspects of his life private? Which ones?

10. Ave's daughter, Etta, is a main character in the book. Ave describes her as "wide open, and yet very private." What parallels can you draw between Ave and Etta, and how are the two characters different? How is Etta a product of Jack Mac's influence? How does she cope with her brother's death?

11. How do the women of Big Stone Gap--Fleeta, Pearl, Iva Lou--function as a sort of Greek chorus for Ave? How
does Ave affect each of their lives, and how do they, in turn, influence hers? How has each woman evolved throughout the two books?

12. The reader sees Ave Maria in a brand-new environment when she travels to Italy. Which facets of her personality come to the forefront? To what factors do you attribute this change in attitude and appearance?

13. While in Italy, Ave imagines what her life would have been like had her mother not married Fred Mulligan. How do you envision Ave's life if she had grown up in Italy? Would it have been more or less fulfilling?

14. Ave's haircut spurs an absolute transformation. In which
other ways does her appearance play a role throughout the book? Of which other novels is this reminiscent?

15. What does Pete represent to Ave, both literally and figuratively? How does he reawaken passion in her?

16. Theodore dismisses Ave's assertion that she didn't really have an affair with Pete. How is this juxtaposition of "word vs. deed" a recurrent motif in the book? What examples can you find in the behavior of Ave, Jack Mac, and their friends?

17. When Jack Mac and Ave have their confrontation about Karen Bell, Ave admits that she wanted him to "take her pain away." Besides Joe's death, what other issues has Ave Maria grappled with throughout her life? How has she usually dealt with any pain she has suffered?

18. Do you believe that Jack Mac consummated his affair with Karen Bell? What evidence do you have for that conclusion?

19. Jack Mac tells Ave, "I truly believed in us, and you never did." What actions echo Jack Mac's assertion? How does Jack Mac demonstrate his love for Ave?

20. At the end of Aunt Alice's life, Ave makes an effort to reconcile with her. To what do you attribute this change of
heart? How does Ave's relationship with Alice compare to
the one she enjoys with her "Eye-talian" relatives?

21. What significance do you derive from the fact that Jack
Mac and Pete get along immediately? What does Pete's appearance in Big Stone Gap, as promised, indicate about his character? How is he similar to Jack Mac, and how is he different?

22. Do you feel that this book is a lead-up to Etta's stand-alone story? How do you envision Etta's adolescence and adulthood?

23. Adriana Trigiani, the book's author, also is an accomplished playwright. How does this novel have the feel of a play--whether through Trigiani's use of dialogue, setting, conflict, or any other literary device?