Adriana Trigiani and a Sweeping Big Band Era Novel

Novelist Adriana Trigiani joins us to talk about her latest audiobook, Tony’s Wife, and narrator Edoardo Ballerini’s engaging performance. In a story about the music of the last century—the Big Band music of the 1940s—two talented working class kids, Tony & Chi Chi, marry and become a successful singing act until time, temptation, and the responsibilities of home and family derail their dreams. Inspired by Adriana’s father’s record collection, the music of Henry Mancini, and the orchestras of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman.

Adriana astutely notes what audiobook narrators bring to the party of an audiobook experience. She shares thoughts on how hearing a story differs from a text reading, and the importance of hearing stories aloud.

We learn about Adriana’s career as a dramatist and playwright, and her work in films and on the stage. She explores how her rich Italian-American-Appalachian heritage informs and influences her work. Adriana and Jo talk about the importance of literacy, and Adriana shares her work on The Origin Project, an in-school writing project for students to find their voices about their Appalachian origins. Listen to the whole conversation below.

“Edoardo just brings you into that world, and it tells the story of the last century . . . though flawed people, but really loving people.”—Author Adriana Trigiani

Tony’s Wife
by Adriana Trigiani, read by Edoardo Ballerini
Harper Audio

One is delighted by Edoardo Ballerini’s warm narration of this audiobook. First, time and place slide into focus as Ballerini navigates regional accents, male and female dialogue, and slang.

Then, the timely song lyrics of protagonist Chi Chi set the mood. Finally, the larger themes of love, sacrifice, ambition, and independence emerge like the crescendo of a big band number.

Tony’s Wife is now available for purchase.

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ABOUT ADRIANA TRIGIANI:

Beloved by millions of readers around the world for her “dazzling” novels, (USA Today) Adriana Trigiani is the New York Times bestselling author of seventeen books in fiction and nonfiction. She is published in 35 countries around the world.

Adriana is also a playwright, television writer/producer and filmmaker. “A comedy writer with a heart of gold,” (New York Times) Adriana is the award-winning director of the documentary film, Queens of the Big Time. She wrote and directed the major motion picture Big Stone Gap, filmed entirely on location in her Virginia hometown. Big Stone Gap spent 11 weeks in theaters in the fall of 2015 and was the #2 top-grossing romantic comedy of the year.

Her latest novel, Kiss Carlo, described as “a delightfully sprawling comedy full of extended families, in all their cocooning warmth and suffocating expectations” (Kirkus) will be published June 20, 2017. A new expanded edition of Cooking with My Sisters will be everywhere in November 2017.