The Hills of Tuscany: A New Home in an Old Land

Description

Ferenc Mate and his painter wife Candace arrived from New York in the late 1980s, knowing almost no Italian and with only four weeks to find themselves a new home. After many mishaps, they finally conclude the deal for their perfect house, an ancient farmhouse in the Tuscan hills, by drawing on the hood of a rusty tractor. Mate brings the real Tuscany to life, the neighbours, the countryside, country-life, the family farm down the road who virtually adopt them and teach them the Tuscan traditions of grape-picking, wine-making, mushroom hunting, woodcutting, the holidays and, of course, the almost never-ending, mouth-watering feasts.

Ferenc Mate was born in Transylvania, escaped to Hungary, later escaped to Austria, and ended up in America. He has worked as carpenter, boatbuilder, member of a railroad extra-gang, and as a deck-hand on tugboats. His many books include Autumn and A Reasonable Life. He lives with his wife and young son, tending his olives and vineyard, in the hills of Tuscany.

'After reading this, I feel the glow of those burnt-umber fields, the taste of the wine, the food. more importantly, I feel the generosity of the people. This memoir is an Italophile's dream, the book of a luminous dream come true.' Jay Parini