Tartufo: A Fungi Lover’s Dream by Kira Jane Buxton

In a small Italian village, but not the one you are thinking of, there is a restaurant. It’s not the one you are thinking of. This one is closed, that one is one town over. There is also a Truffle expert, but not the one you are thinking of. The other Truffle experts live in the next town over. There is a mayor who was once a veterinarian, who almost lost the mayoral race to a donkey. Once a child running barefoot through the village, she was also the mayor’s daughter. There is a grandmother who is everybody’s grandmother, who teaches her granddaughter how to cook, took in local couple Giovanni and Paolo when family rejected them, oh and her house was almost taken out by an avalanche. That’s not forgetting the local truffle hunter, the disgraced postmaster and the volatile, somewhat, landlady of the last remaining bar in town.

In Tartufo, Kira Jane Buxton paints a picture of small town Italian life that is a tapestry of the absurd and the wonderful, the insane and the beautiful. Full of endearing characters and sumptuous descriptions, we are drawn into the life of the village of Lazzarini Boscarino, and where others may only stop here for directions to the next town over, I may never want to leave.

Having fallen on hard times, the town is hoping for a miracle. When that miracle comes, it is in the form of the world’s largest truffle. As truffle mania grips the village, the surrounding towns, and the restaurant world, literally across the world, we journey with each denizen of the village, current and former, through the trials and tribulations of what it is to decline and rally again and again. What it is to truly be a community.

Part of the charm and greatness of this book is how the story unfolds, spoilers would indeed spoil it. So I will speak of the mushrooms instead of the unfolding storylines. Mushrooms have long held a fascination for me, since before The Last of Us I have been charmed by foraging for fungi, and wistfully dreaming of magical toadstools. Put a mushroom on something and I will decorate my house with it, or wear it. One of the things I love about mushrooms is the vast world that lies under the surface of the dirt. It speaks to my soul in a way that reminds me of the interconnectedness of the people around me, the life around me. Buxton is a mushroom lover after my heart, who puts words to things I have felt.

These woods smell to him like so many old books, libraries made of leaves. Perhaps what pleases Giovanni most is all the untamed energy rippling around him. A bright living language, the never-ending painting and poetry of nature. Humility has shrunken him, and better yet, his woes. Woods are wild and chaotic. None of the pruned nip and tuck of a well tended garden. Survival… The last fumes of frustration burn off with the morning mist.

Along with fungi, Buxton enjoys writing about animals, and while Tartufo focuses on people, she uses their animals to great effect. Her first novels, Hollow Kingdom and Feral Creatures, focused on a crow at the beginning of the end of the world. Her offbeat sense of humor is just as present in the village residents of Tartufo as it was in the creatures of her first books. She uses wonderful descriptions of the animals in her books, but she also describes their relationships with the world they live in, and what they are thinking. I still have not read her first two books, though they appeal to me in so many ways, mostly because as a rule I don’t like books told from the perspective of animals. But having read Tartufo, and the beautiful and engaging thoughts of Giovannis’ dog, I am determined finally to read her earlier works. She has won me over with her words.

A cat – best described as a cross between a crumpled tuxedo and a well-used toilet wand – sits in vigilance… The cat purrs in anticipation of anarchy.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed reading this book. It felt comforting, like coming home on a warm Spring day, but also deep, like how a really good conversation over a glass of wine feels. I cannot stress this enough; it is the perfect piece of escapism for a world gone mad. With extensive scene setting and character introduction, the first half of the book does move at a slower pace, but once the Truffle is uncovered it quickly becomes a page turning race to the conclusion of the story. You will find yourself laughing and weeping along with the characters, and will take them with you even when you leave their pages behind. I find myself like the redoubtable Giuseppina wanting “everyone to fall for the charm of Lazzarini Boscarino. For the magic and beauty in the simplicity of small village life.”

Tartufo was released on January 28th. GeekMom received a copy of this book for review purposes.