Ellen Cooney

PRAISE FOR
Lambrusco

From Publishers Weekly
In this heartfelt if uneven portrayal of a widow's wartime struggles, Cooney captures the chaos visited upon the Italian countryside during WWII. Lucia Fantini, renowned for her operatic performances in the family restaurant, finds herself on a mission to find her son, Beppi, who went into hiding after blowing up a German tank. In her travels, she crosses paths with an American woman, a former golf champion who is part of army intelligence; distant neighbors whose homes have been bombed; and people who have been involved with the restaurant.

Cooney takes great pains to capture the individual idiosyncrasies of the characters, but the many competing personalities dilute Lucia's story. Flashbacks appear frequently, and though some are illuminating, the combination of recollections, the present story and Lucia's occasional delusions (one minute, bombs are falling, the next, Lucia is having a conversation with Verdi and Puccini over who is the greater musician) lacks balance. Still, Cooney (A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies) accomplishes her task of portraying, on a very personal level, the moxie and individuality of the Italian villagers as they face the challenges of war.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

“Cooney’s darkly comic journey of revelation triumphantly demonstrates the sustaining power of love, duty, family, and friendship.”
-- Booklist

“Lovingly presented . . . touching . . . Cooney explores how war causes not just injury to the body, but more importantly explains how every participant can be ‘injured in his nerves, in his self, in his soul.’”
-- Kirkus

"This is surely Ellen Cooney's most original work. Who else would have placed a squad of partisans in the Italian Resistance, who happen to be waiters in a seaside restaurant famous for the opera sung by the owner's wife, against a backdrop of bombed, wartorn Italy? The effect is positively Felliniesque."
-- Anita Desai

“A writer with style and heart.”
-- O, The Oprah Magazine

“This remarkably talented author writes in a refined, understated prose.”
-- The New York Times Book Review

“A war story with personality.”
-- New York Post

“Ellen Cooney's prose is beautifully descriptive.”
-- Charleston Post and Courier

PRAISE FOR
A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies

From Publishers Weekly
Playing out in Boston during the freezing winter of 1900, Cooney's sixth novel (after Gun Ball Hill) has a steamy premise—a proper young lady winds up at a hotel where female guests are visited at night by handsome young men—but an emotionally distant execution keeps titillation to a minimum. Charlotte Heath, married to the youngest son of an immensely wealthy family, has spent her wedded life living with the clan in their imposing ancestral home. After a debilitating illness of unknown origin keeps her bedridden for almost a year, Charlotte finally leaves her room, only to find her husband on the cusp of an embrace with another woman. Without a second thought, she quits her life entirely and seeks out her only friend, the Heaths' former cook, who works in Boston at "The Beechmont: A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies." It takes a while for Charlotte to realize what's going on at the hotel, where a whole cast of quirky characters hold court -- including a handsome young stud who ultimately breaks Charlotte's heart. The narrative moves dreamlike through a web of Charlotte's musings during her unlikely adventure. Cooney's story compels, but continual flashbacks and reminiscences make the narrative feel bumpy and disjointed.
-- Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed


“Charlotte Heath is the most enticing heroine I’ve met in some time: tenderhearted yet obstinate, genteel yet deeply sensual. The adventure she takes us on is wonderfully eccentric, deliciously observed, and ends with the kind of gratifying surprise that reminds me why telling stories, and reading them, is such an essential pleasure in my life.”
–Julia Glass, author of Three Junes

“A sharp-eyed novel of erotic awakening circa 1900. . . . Cool comfort from a writer with style and heart.”
-- O, The Oprah Magazine

"An upbeat, even old-fashioned story about personal growth, telling us we can’t know where we are until we remember where we’ve been."
-- Boston Magazine

"Full of earthy characters and situations you hate to leave. . . . A delightful and intriguing read."
-- Historical Novels Review

PRAISE FOR

Gun Ball Hill

From Booklist
A small village in Maine in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War is the setting for Cooney's fifth novel, in which emphasis is placed less on the historic events of the times--the Boston Tea Party, George Washington's appointment as commander of the nascent army, Paul Revere's ride to warn of the approach of the British, and the growth of militias--and more on the effect of these events on the lives of ordinary people. When Tories massacre the Mowlan family of Tibbetston, Maine, in 1774, their friends, neighbors, and family come together to share their grief and then bond together to prepare for the coming war. Following the lives of several different characters, including the sister and brother of the murdered Lavinia Mowlan, and Winnie Goodbridge, a tavern owner who decides to use her personal savings to set up a foundry to make weapons to fight the British, Cooney convincingly shows how each person is changed forever by the violence that has touched his or her life. -- Nancy Pearl
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

"A careful, intelligent account of the personal motives behind historical events. Dramatic and instructive."
-- Kirkus Reviews

"A finely crafted narrative, a keen and sympathetic grasp of human nature, a convincing portrayal of place and time."
--Down East

"Cooney's prose is lively and often surprising. Each character is fleshed out, earthy, and full of quirks. The major events of the time are woven into the story with ease."
--Historical Novels Review

PRAISE FOR

The White Palazzo

From Publishers Weekly
Quirky characters spend much of their time thinking disjointed thoughts and acting on scattered ideas in Cooney's likable but unfocused fourth novel (after The Old Ballerina). Tara Barlow is a young Massachusetts woman who has every aspect of her life planned down to the slightest detail, including her upcoming wedding. But when her chosen site for the nuptials burns to the ground four months before the big day, Tara calmly hops into her Mustang and takes off for parts unknown ("'I'll go west,' she decided. 'I'll go west like the setting sun' "), leaving behind no clue to her whereabouts. She doesn't get much farther than the next town over before the book's viewpoint switches to that of Guida Santucci, the local psychic who is hired to track Tara down ("I was Italian, and I was Catholic, and I was fat. And one day, it was raining," begins Guida's narrative about her discovery of her oracular powers). Guida does manage to find Tara, although it is through old-fashioned detective work rather than third-eye divination. To the amazement of both the 53-year-old Guida and the 24-year-old Tara, a strong mutual attraction immediately develops. The novel is marred by Cooney's tendency to wander off the subject as the characters slip into frequent flashbacks. Though not everyone will go for Cooney's stylized cast of eccentrics, the affair between Guida and Tara is sweetly rendered and their dizzy interior lives possess a whimsical charm.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Tara, who calls herself "TB--like the disease," is about to have her dream wedding, complete with roast beef, emerald high heels, "slutty" silver-glitter eye shadow, and red pantyhose and bra beneath a thin, white bridal gown. But the beautiful old White Cliffs restaurant, her cherished venue for the event, burns to the ground. Shattered, she leaves town with a note to her parents to tell her fiance, Tommy, that she is calling the whole thing off, which isn't a bad idea, since it has already crossed her mind that what she really wanted was a wedding, not a marriage. Meanwhile, the local psychic, Signora Guida Santucci, equally devastated by the fire (why hadn't she foreseen it?), refuses job offers thereafter yet agrees to help Tara's parents locate her. Following her instinct that Tara is still in Massachusetts, Guida finds her, and both women are surprised by their mutual attraction. But can they find true love and happiness? Many will want to find out from a novel this fresh and engaging.
-- Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

"Cooney truly has her finger on the pulse of human nature, and can make the strangest things feel completely logical."
-- txtriangle.com

"Ellen Cooney has written a hilarious book about two women falling in love."
-- NewPages.com

"Subtle and hilarious, without being cynical or cruel...Thelma & Louise and an inversion of The Graduate."
-- The Rake, December 2002

PRAISE FOR

The Old Ballerina

From Publishers Weekly
Light and lovely, Cooney's third novel (after Small-Town Girl and All the Way Home) is about the way one superb ballet teacher -- indomitable, aging Irene Kamsky -- touches the lives of her students and alters her community. From a dance studio in her ranch-style home, located in a suburb north of a nondescript town, she and her art shape the stories of many characters, each narrating his or her own chapter in this slender novel. Among the unpretentious ballerina's admirers (all refer to her, respectfully, as Mrs. Kamsky) are her devoted assistant, Margaret Dunlap, who gets the job under false pretenses, but learns to love her employer, doing everything from caring for Mrs. Kamsky's arthritic hip to monitoring her record collection; tortured Lisette, Mrs. Kamsky's legendary student, once a serious ballerina until foot injuries forced her to become a teacher herself, and who drinks to drown her sorrows; and Mrs. Kamsky's current class of "boy ballerinas" who describe, in first-personal plural, their feelings before and after their first public performance. While its plot is slight, the novel is full of warmth and insight. Cooney's not-quite-articulate characters are clumsily eloquent, whether it is Margaret describing her first glimpse of male dancers ("If I never saw the moon before, not even in pictures, and no one had told me that it existed... would I know what it was?") or the boys explaining how they learn to really listen to music ("the notes of the music are going into us in the part of the brain where we know basic things"). Though it favors abstraction at the expense of cohesion, Cooney's small novel is a valentine to the transformative power of art.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Who says all ballerinas must be beautiful and young? In her third novel, Cooney (All the Way Home) tells a story about dance and its restorative powers. Irene Kamsky is an elderly former ballerina suffering from orthopedic problems who earns her living teaching ballet. When her beloved protege leaves her, a heartbroken Kamsky starts up a class for teenaged boys (some of whom are real troublemakers). As the boys learn to love ballet, Kamsky's passion for art and creativity is rekindled. Related by multiple narrators whose lives Kamsky has touched, this story showcases the author's talent for telling compelling tales and creating flawed but lovable characters. Feisty, eccentric, and independent, Kamsky is an inspiring protagonist. Recommended for public libraries.
-- Ellen R. Cohen, Rockville, MD
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"The Old Ballerina is an enchanting book about masters and pupils, real life and the imagined life, and what it means to dance. At the center of this fresh and charming novel stands the goddess, Mrs. Kamsky, the old ballerina to die for."
-- Jane Hamilton, author of A Map of the World and The Short History of a Prince

"This remarkably talented author writes in a refined, understated prose that captures the spontaneity of adolescent dialogue in an eloquent, often brilliant narrative."
-- The New York Times Book Review

“Showcases the author’s talent for telling compelling tales and
creating flawed but lovable characters.”
-- Library Journal

PRAISE FOR

All the Way Home

“Ingeniously plotted . . . The richness of lives that are limited without being narrow is [Cooney’s] forte.”
–Ms.

PRAISE FOR

Small Town Girl

“This remarkably talented author writes in a refined, understated prose . . . in an eloquent, often brilliant narrative.”
–The New York Times Book Review