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2008 Nominated

American Cookery

Laura Kalpakian

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ABOUT
THE BOOK

Eden was born in 1920 into a contentious California tribe, and the ingredients of her life include her grandmother’s reserve, her aunt’s instinct for action, and her mother’s foggy warmth. Seasoned with spicy herbs, and a few bitter ones, simmered and stirred over time, these instincts shape her destiny.

A big-cast book, American Cookery fulfills the wide embrace of its title. The novel chronicles the stories behind family recipes and the lives that touch Eden’s—lives of horse thieves, ranchers, railroad men, developers, dreamers, migrants, immigrants, natives, Latter-Day Saints, sinners, silent-film stars, sidekicks, and stunt people.

The good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful emerge in these pages as American Cookery serves up the whole gorgeous banquet of life.

Laura Kalpakian

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Laura
Kalpakian

Laura Kalpakian has won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, the Anahid Award for an American writer of Armenian descent, the PEN West Award, and the Stand International Short Fiction Competition. She has had residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Montalvo Center for the Arts, and Hawthornden Castle in Scotland. She is the author of multiple novels and over a hundred stories published in collections, anthologies, literary journals and magazines in the U.S. and the U.K. A native of California, Laura lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Laura Kalpakian has won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, the Anahid Award for an American writer of Armenian descent, the PEN West Award, and the Stand International Short Fiction Competition. She has had residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Montalvo Center for the Arts, and Hawthornden Castle in Scotland. She is the author of multiple novels and over a hundred stories published in collections, anthologies, literary journals and magazines in the U.S. and the U.K. A native of California, Laura lives in the Pacific Northwest.

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NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

A wonderful family history from California with a lot of ethnic groups melted in a stew – life is like a recipe of food and food is the motif of this novel.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Country
United States
Original Language
English
Author
Laura Kalpakian
Publisher
St. Martin’s Press
Nominating Library
Frederiksberg Bibliotek - Denmark

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