From Publishers Weekly
The third book in Trigiani's series about the middle-aged but young-at-heart Ave Maria of Big Stone Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains is simply made for the ear. The author colorfully and flawlessly captures the characters' southern and Italian accents, transporting listeners into Ave Maria's charmed world. She's a pharmacist in a small Virginia town but has relatives in Italy; and her daughter Etta has just entered her teen years, causing Ave Maria much heartache and uncertainty. She's torn between wanting Etta to mature and wishing Etta was much younger. She cheerfully discusses affairs from the daily chatter at the drugstore counter to more serious matters, such as the death of her son years earlier and her best friend Iva Lou's breast cancer. The dialogue is always snappy (e.g., after Ave Maria has seen a man she's attracted to, Iva Lou quips, "That's how they keep us hooked... those rats"). The words, as well as Trigiani's cadence and emotions, allow listeners to easily envision each character. They'll appreciate Ave Maria's enthusiasm when she visits New York and Italy and describes everything in lush detail. But when she's flying home and remarks, "southwest Virginia is an uncomplicated place for a complicated person," listeners will also understand exactly what is meant. This is a treasure of an audio. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The last in the "Big Stone Gap" trilogy (Big Stone Gap, Big Cherry Holler) brings us back to Ave Maria and Jack Mac during daughter Etta's teenage years. Despite upheaval and family tensions, this is a happy book, sprinkled with gentle, down-home humor and a rich sense of place the mountains of both Virginia and Italy. The advice from the Wise County Fair fortune-teller to "redream" or reinvent one's life is perfect for readers of all ages. Trigiani does a fine job of resolving 20-year story lines while still leaving readers wanting more. Fans of the previous novels will savor this title as well while anticipating the film version of Big Stone Gap. Recommended for popular fiction collections. Rebecca Sturm Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland HeightsCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
The conclusion to the Big Stone Gap trilogy takes us back into the lives of Ave Maria and Jack Mac, Etta and Iva Lou in the Southern town of Big Stone Gap. Ave Maria struggles with her teenaged daughter, Iva Lou's, health and her marriage to Jack Mac. They travel the Blue Ridge Mountains and explore New York City while their relationship strengthens and deepens. As Adriana Trigiani reads this story in her subtle southwest Virginia accent, enunciating her words in that lispy Southern drawl, the familiar small-town characters come alive. Trigiani's narration works well with the first-person narrative of Ave Maria, creating the illusion that the author is telling the tale of her own life. MILK GLASS MOON is a snapshot of the comfort of small-town living where everyone knows you and your business. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
The final installment of Trigiani's heartfelt trilogy will not disappoint fans impatient to reconnect with the delightfully eccentric residents of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. After marrying at age 35, burying one child, and almost allowing her marriage to fall apart, former spinster and town pharmacist Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney mistakenly believes she is back on firm ground. As she apprehensively watches her daughter, Etta, mature into womanhood, she realizes her feelings of complacency were not rooted in reality. Unable to let go, Ave attempts to mold Etta into a stronger, more independent version of herself. Chafing under her mother's watchful eye, Etta blossoms into a self-sufficient adolescent with definite plans of her own. Learning to reconcile her own personal desires with those of her beloved husband and daughter, a middle-aged Ave Maria "redreams" her future and explores another life path. Chockfull of the homespun characters and the earthy wisdom readers have come to expect from this utterly charming series. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
Praise for Big Cherry Holler

"Trigiani is a wonderful storyteller. . . . Readers will enjoy Big Cherry Holler immensely." –USA Today

"Fans of the first novel will rejoice. . . . Ave heads to Italy to find strength and healing in her ancestry. . . . Trigiani deftly juxtaposes the culture of the Appalachian mountains with that found in the Italian Alps."–Southern Living

"Heartwarming . . . Everything that really matters is here: humor, romance, wisdom, and drama." –The Dallas Morning News

"Trigiani can make you laugh in one sentence then break your heart the next. Her Big Stone Gap series is sure to become the next Mitford."–The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi)

Praise for Big Stone Gap

"As comforting as a mug of chamomile tea on a rainy Sunday." –The New York Times Book Review

"Delightfully quirky . . . chock-full of engaging, oddball characters and unexpected plot twists."–People

"In this delightful tale of intimate community life in the hamlet of Big Stone Gap, the characters are as real as the ones who live next door."–The Sunday Oklahoman


From the Hardcover edition.


Review
Praise for Big Cherry Holler

"Trigiani is a wonderful storyteller. . . . Readers will enjoy Big Cherry Holler immensely." ?USA Today

"Fans of the first novel will rejoice. . . . Ave heads to Italy to find strength and healing in her ancestry. . . . Trigiani deftly juxtaposes the culture of the Appalachian mountains with that found in the Italian Alps."?Southern Living

"Heartwarming . . . Everything that really matters is here: humor, romance, wisdom, and drama." ?The Dallas Morning News

"Trigiani can make you laugh in one sentence then break your heart the next. Her Big Stone Gap series is sure to become the next Mitford."?The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi)

Praise for Big Stone Gap

"As comforting as a mug of chamomile tea on a rainy Sunday." ?The New York Times Book Review

"Delightfully quirky . . . chock-full of engaging, oddball characters and unexpected plot twists."?People

"In this delightful tale of intimate community life in the hamlet of Big Stone Gap, the characters are as real as the ones who live next door."?The Sunday Oklahoman


From the Hardcover edition.


Book Description
Milk Glass Moon, the third book in Adriana Trigiani's bestselling Big Stone Gap series, continues the life story of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney as she faces the challenges and changes of motherhood with her trademark humor and honesty. With twists as plentiful as those found on the holler roads of southwest Virginia, this story takes turns that will surprise and enthrall the reader.

Transporting us from Ave Maria's home in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Italian Alps, from New York City to the Tuscan countryside, Milk Glass Moon is the story of a shifting mother-daughter relationship, of a daughter's first love and a mother's heartbreak, of an enduring marriage that contains its own ongoing challenges, and of a community faced with seismic change.

All of Trigiani's beloved characters are back: Jack Mac, Ave Maria's true love, who is willing to gamble security for the unknown; her best friend and confidant, bandleader Theodore Tip-ton, who begins a new life in New York City; librarian and sexpert Iva Lou Wade Makin, who faces a life-or-death crisis. Meanwhile, surprises emerge in the blossoming of crusty cashier Fleeta Mullins, the maturing of mountain girl turned savvy businesswoman Pearl Grimes, and the return of Pete Rutledge, the handsome stranger who turned Ave Maria's world upside down in Big Cherry Holler.

In this rollicking hayride of upheaval and change, Ave Maria is led to places she never dreamed she would go, and to people who enter her life and rock its foundation. As Ave Maria reaches into the past to find answers to the present, readers will stay with her every step of the way, rooting for the onetime town spinster who embraced love and made a family. Milk Glass Moon is about the power of love and its abiding truth, and captures Trigiani at her most lyrical and heartfelt.


From the Inside Flap
Milk Glass Moon, the third book in Adriana Trigiani's bestselling Big Stone Gap series, continues the life story of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney as she faces the challenges and changes of motherhood with her trademark humor and honesty. With twists as plentiful as those found on the holler roads of southwest Virginia, this story takes turns that will surprise and enthrall the reader.

Transporting us from Ave Maria's home in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Italian Alps, from New York City to the Tuscan countryside, Milk Glass Moon is the story of a shifting mother-daughter relationship, of a daughter's first love and a mother's heartbreak, of an enduring marriage that contains its own ongoing challenges, and of a community faced with seismic change.

All of Trigiani's beloved characters are back: Jack Mac, Ave Maria's true love, who is willing to gamble security for the unknown; her best friend and confidant, bandleader Theodore Tip-ton, who begins a new life in New York City; librarian and sexpert Iva Lou Wade Makin, who faces a life-or-death crisis. Meanwhile, surprises emerge in the blossoming of crusty cashier Fleeta Mullins, the maturing of mountain girl turned savvy businesswoman Pearl Grimes, and the return of Pete Rutledge, the handsome stranger who turned Ave Maria's world upside down in Big Cherry Holler.

In this rollicking hayride of upheaval and change, Ave Maria is led to places she never dreamed she would go, and to people who enter her life and rock its foundation. As Ave Maria reaches into the past to find answers to the present, readers will stay with her every step of the way, rooting for the onetime town spinster who embraced love and made a family. Milk Glass Moon is about the power of love and its abiding truth, and captures Trigiani at her most lyrical and heartfelt.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Milk Glass Moon, the third book in Adriana Trigiani's bestselling Big Stone Gap series, continues the life story of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney as she faces the challenges and changes of motherhood with her trademark humor and honesty. With twists as plentiful as those found on the holler roads of southwest Virginia, this story takes turns that will surprise and enthrall the reader.

Transporting us from Ave Maria's home in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Italian Alps, from New York City to the Tuscan countryside, Milk Glass Moon is the story of a shifting mother-daughter relationship, of a daughter's first love and a mother's heartbreak, of an enduring marriage that contains its own ongoing challenges, and of a community faced with seismic change.

All of Trigiani's beloved characters are back: Jack Mac, Ave Maria's true love, who is willing to gamble security for the unknown; her best friend and confidant, bandleader Theodore Tip-ton, who begins a new life in New York City; librarian and sexpert Iva Lou Wade Makin, who faces a life-or-death crisis. Meanwhile, surprises emerge in the blossoming of crusty cashier Fleeta Mullins, the maturing of mountain girl turned savvy businesswoman Pearl Grimes, and the return of Pete Rutledge, the handsome stranger who turned Ave Maria's world upside down in Big Cherry Holler.

In this rollicking hayride of upheaval and change, Ave Maria is led to places she never dreamed she would go, and to people who enter her life and rock its foundation. As Ave Maria reaches into the past to find answers to the present, readers will stay with her every step of the way, rooting for the onetime town spinster whoembraced love and made a family. Milk Glass Moon is about the power of love and its abiding truth, and captures Trigiani at her most lyrical and heartfelt.

Author Biography: Adriana Trigiani grew up in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, and now lives with her husband in New York City. In addition to being the bestselling author of Big Stone Gap and Big Cherry Holler, she is an award-winning playwright, television writer, and documentary filmmaker. She has written the screenplay for the film version of Big Stone Gap, which she will also direct.

SYNOPSIS

Milk Glass Moon, the third book in Adriana Trigiani's bestselling Big Stone Gap series, continues the life story of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney as she faces the challenges and changes of motherhood with her trademark humor and honesty.

FROM THE CRITICS

Book Magazine - Susan Tekulve

In the final novel of the Big Stone Gap trilogy, Adriana Trigiani returns to the Virginia mountain setting of her first two bestselling novels, 2000's Big Stone Gap and 2001's Big Cherry Holler. Ave Maria, that Italian-American girl from Cracker's Neck Holler, is now teetering on the precipice of middle age. Still married to house contractor Jack MacChesney, she faces the new challenge of raising her quickly developing daughter, Etta. The episodic narrative begins when Etta is twelve and spans six years. In an early scene, Ave finds Etta on top of the MacChesneys' old stone house, helping two family friends patch the roof. When the girl slips, Ave props a ladder against the house and eases her safely to the ground. This moment prefigures the central conflict of the book—the natural tension between a fearful mother and a daughter who resists her mother's attempts to keep her safe. Sometimes, this tension is difficult to believe. Sensible and pretty, Etta is more interested in astronomy and architecture than boys. She even sets the dinner table without being asked. Trigiani seasons the mother/daughter story with tidbits of mountain lore, both Appalachian and Italian. She inserts full recipes for pansotti and chocolate Coca-Cola cake in the middle of her narrative. Big Stone Gap fans will also enjoy catching up with the characters from the first two novels. In between mothering crises, Ave visits her old friend Theodore at his new apartment in New York City and meets up with Pete Rutledge, the hunky marble exporter with whom she romped through a Tuscan field of bluebells. Ave's loyal best friend, Iva Lou, still drives the local bookmobile and talks like a pluckycountry-and-western song. During a girls' night out in Abingdon to see a musical production of Fair and Tender Ladies, Iva Lou and Ave joke about being just like the characters in the play "on a good night." This comparison to Lee Smith's gorgeous, authentic novel about another Virginia mountain girl, Ivy Rowe, is unfortunate because it draws attention to the weaknesses in Trigiani's novel. Trigiani's characters may be gussied-up Appalachian people, but the narrative voices and artistic visions of these two books are vastly different. Smith's heroine is landlocked by mountains and relentless poverty, but she continually reaches beyond her own limited experience. Though college educated and well traveled, Ave Maria consistently oversimplifies the people and places she encounters, and sometimes her own emotions. Both heroines are deeply tied to the mountains that surround their hometowns. Smith chronicles the modernization of southern Appalachia, exploring the complex effects of lumber and coal companies that have plowed through this region, leaving behind whole communities struggling to retain a way of life that is no longer viable. Trigiani's heroine finds peace and a loving community in her small town, and the most lyrical passages in Milk Glass Moon occur when Ave finds consolation in the soulful mountain scenery. Flying home from New York City, Ave sees the Blue Ridge mountains rolling out beneath her window and remarks, "Southwest Virginia is an uncomplicated place for a complex person, and I miss it whenever I go." While the coal operations hover menacingly outside the borders of Big Stone Gap, Trigiani creates and sustains a sweet, nostalgic portrait of bucolic mountains and simple small-town folk. However, those looking for a complex treatment of this region and its people will not find it in this novel.

Publishers Weekly

The third book in Trigiani's series about the middle-aged but young-at-heart Ave Maria of Big Stone Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains is simply made for the ear. The author colorfully and flawlessly captures the characters' southern and Italian accents, transporting listeners into Ave Maria's charmed world. She's a pharmacist in a small Virginia town but has relatives in Italy; and her daughter Etta has just entered her teen years, causing Ave Maria much heartache and uncertainty. She's torn between wanting Etta to mature and wishing Etta was much younger. She cheerfully discusses affairs from the daily chatter at the drugstore counter to more serious matters, such as the death of her son years earlier and her best friend Iva Lou's breast cancer. The dialogue is always snappy (e.g., after Ave Maria has seen a man she's attracted to, Iva Lou quips, "That's how they keep us hooked... those rats"). The words, as well as Trigiani's cadence and emotions, allow listeners to easily envision each character. They'll appreciate Ave Maria's enthusiasm when she visits New York and Italy and describes everything in lush detail. But when she's flying home and remarks, "southwest Virginia is an uncomplicated place for a complicated person," listeners will also understand exactly what is meant. This is a treasure of an audio. Simultaneous release with the Random House hardcover (Forecasts, June 24). (July) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

The last in the "Big Stone Gap" trilogy (Big Stone Gap, Big Cherry Holler) brings us back to Ave Maria and Jack Mac during daughter Etta's teenage years. Despite upheaval and family tensions, this is a happy book, sprinkled with gentle, down-home humor and a rich sense of place the mountains of both Virginia and Italy. The advice from the Wise County Fair fortune-teller to "redream" or reinvent one's life is perfect for readers of all ages. Trigiani does a fine job of resolving 20-year story lines while still leaving readers wanting more. Fans of the previous novels will savor this title as well while anticipating the film version of Big Stone Gap. Recommended for popular fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/1/02; chronology problems existed in the advance uncorrected proofs, which, one hopes, have been remedied. Ed. ] Rebecca Sturm Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews