Author Event: Honey by Victor Lodato

Victor Lodato, author of Edgar and Lucy—one of Cassie’s favorite books—and Mathilda Savitch, brings us a “whip smart, surly, and still sexy” story in Honey (available 4/16/24). Honey is the third novel by Victor Lodato and a dream of a book. It is heartfelt and poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, a kind of literary version of A Man Called Ove with an epically unforgettable heroine—a free-spirited cynic, whose an irreverent mix of Rosalind Russell’s Auntie Mame and Wednesday Addams. With her saucy intelligence, sly observations, antisocial cantankerousness, and delicious vanity, Honey uses every coping mechanism she has to hide and protect her huge, huge heart (which she actually wears on her sleeve). Meet a woman as tenacious as Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge and as irresistible as Andrew Sean Greer’s Arthur Less: Honey Fasinga, the glamorous daughter of a notorious New Jersey mobster, is returning home at last, ready to reckon with her violent past. As a rebellious teenager, Honey managed to escape her father’s circle of influence and reinvent herself in a world of art and beauty, working for a high-end auction house in Los Angeles. Now in her twilight years, she decides to return home and unexpectedly falls in love. But in her family, nothing has changed. When her grandnephew Michael bursts into her life in what appears to be a drug-fueled frenzy, and her Lexus gets jacked, it’s hard to keep minding her own business. As old cruelties begin to resurface, Honey is no longer sure what she really wants—to forgive or to avenge. This electrifying literary breakout from PEN USA Award-winning author Victor Lodato is a masterful and deeply moving portrait of love in all its forms, of moral ambiguity, and of inspiring change—a story of female rage that asks the question: What are the limits of compassion in a world gone mad? “Utterly enchanting. A deeply human novel that sings the song of life itself. What a brilliant feat of empathy, style, and transcendent beauty—Lodato has created a true original in Honey.”  — Mona Awad, author of Bunny Victor Lodato is a playwright and the author of the novels Edgar and Lucy and Mathilda Savitch, winner of the PEN USA Award for Fiction. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts, his stories and essays regularly appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, and elsewhere. His novels and plays have been translated into eighteen languages. Born and raised in New Jersey, he now lives in Oregon and Arizona.