Love & Saffron

 

Love & Saffron : A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love by Kim Fay

Fiction

2022 G. P. Putnam's Sons

Finished on January 23, 2023

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding)

Publisher's Blurb:

The #1 Indie Next Pick, in the vein of the classic 84, Charing Cross Road and Meet Me at the Museum, this witty and tender novel follows two women in 1960s America as they discover that food really does connect us all, and that friendship and laughter are the best medicine.

When twenty-seven-year-old Joan Bergstrom sends a fan letter--as well as a gift of saffron--to fifty-nine-year-old Imogen Fortier, a life-changing friendship begins. Joan lives in Los Angeles and is just starting out as a writer for the newspaper food pages. Imogen lives on Camano Island outside Seattle, writing a monthly column for a Pacific Northwest magazine, and while she can hunt elk and dig for clams, she's never tasted fresh garlic--exotic fare in the Northwest of the sixties. As the two women commune through their letters, they build a closeness that sustains them through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the unexpected in their own lives.

Food and a good life--they can't be separated. It is a discovery the women share, not only with each other, but with the men in their lives. Because of her correspondence with Joan, Imogen's decades-long marriage blossoms into something new and exciting, and in turn, Joan learns that true love does not always come in the form we expect it to. Into this beautiful, intimate world comes the ultimate test of Joan and Imogen's friendship--a test that summons their unconditional trust in each other.

A brief respite from our chaotic world, Love & Saffron is a gem of a novel, a reminder that food and friendship are the antidote to most any heartache, and that human connection will always be worth creating.

Wow. Three 5-star reads in the first month of the year! I'm on a roll, thanks to all the great recommendations from fellow book lovers. There are so many wonderful things about living on the Oregon coast, but we are in dire need of a good bookstore, so unless we're on a road trip in the RV, I never get the opportunity to wander around and admire the new releases, or pick up a book based solely on its attractive cover art. I've grown to depend on bloggers, Instagrammers, Goodread's friends, and Ann Patchett's laydown diaries (on Parnassus Books' Instagram feed). I'm pretty sure that I heard about Love & Saffron from more than one of these platforms. 

Easily read in a single sitting, I forced myself to slowly savor the book, reading it over the course of two evenings. Going into the story cold, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's comprised entirely of letters between the two main characters. (No, I didn't even read the book blurb, which would have revealed this fact.) I'm a huge fan of epistolary novels, and as I read, I envisioned scenes from 84, Charing Cross Road (starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins). Like those two characters from Helene Hanff's marvelous book, Joan and Imogen not only exchange letters, but gifts of unique food items and recipes. Spanning the years between 1962 and 1966, the historical details are an added bonus (although I momentarily felt that Fay was working from a mental checklist--almost to the point of distraction--including the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy's assassination, the Beatles, a new TV show called The French Chef, starring Julia Child, etc.), as are the women's comments about their current reading material. In addition to 84, Charing Cross Road, Love & Saffron brings to mind the correspondences and friendship between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto. (Coincidentally, Imogen's husband discovers the joy of cooking and purchased a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.)

There is so much to enjoy about this book (which I had to remind myself is fiction and not a culinary memoir). My love of the Pacific Northwest, and familiarity with Seattle and the surrounding area, is just one aspect of the story I relished. The sweet friendship between the two women reminded me of the importance of the special friends in my own life, and how one comes to cherish those kindred spirits.

Love & Saffron will enchant fans of Laurie Colwin, Ann Hood, Helene Hanff, and Erica Bauermeister. Highly recommend!