John Saturnall's Feast

Lawrence Norfolk

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English

Bloomsbury
01 October 2013

Fiction & Literature; Historical fiction

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- This is my favourite historical novel of the year, along with Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies. It is 17th century England and John has the extraordinary ability to determine ingredients in any dish. When he and his mother, the village wise woman, are driven out by religious bigots, he gains refuge after her death in Buckland Manor. His talents see him rise from scullery boy to head cook, but he is driven by the need to fulfil his mother’s vision and create a Grand Feast, no matter how many years it takes… His recipes (for which Heston Blumenthal was consulted!) are interspersed throughout the book. A story of love and redemption, and a colourful recreation of the times, this is a fine feast for any reader of delicious prose! Lindy

-----

From the bestselling author of Lempriere'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.

By: Lawrence Norfolk
Imprint: Bloomsbury
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm,
Weight: 290g
ISBN: 9781408831168
ISBN 10: 1408831163
Pages: 416
Publication Date: 01 October 2013
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Lawrence Norfolk is the bestselling author of Lempriere's Dictionary, The Pope's Rhinoceros and In the Shape of a Boar, three literary historical novels which have been translated into 24 languages. He was born in London in 1963 but moved with his parents to Iraq shortly after. They were evacuated following the Six Day War in 1967 and he grew up in the West Country of England. He is the winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the Budapest Festival Prize for Literature and his work has been shortlisted for the IMPAC Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Award and the Wingate/Jewish Quarterly Prize for Literature. In 1992 he was listed as one of Granta magazine's 20 'Best of Young British Writers'. In the same year he reported on the war in Bosnia for News magazine of Austria. His journalism and reviews have appeared in newspapers and magazines throughout Europe and America. He lives in London with his wife and two sons. http://www.lawrencenorfolk.com/

Reviews for John Saturnall's Feast

A brilliant, erudite tale of cookery and witchcraft * A.S. Byatt, Guardian Books of the Year * A story of politics, pageantry but above all food, described with mouth-watering precision. No one else could have written it -- Mark Sanderson * Daily Telegraph Books of the Year * 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 * 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 *