Angelina’s Bachelors: A Novel with Food By Brian O’Reilly

Angelina’s Bachelors is an unlikely novel with a female protagonist penned by Brian O’ Reilly,
the creator of Food Network’s Dinner: Impossible. Having written two cookbooks prior, his first
effort at fiction parlays his aspiration to write fiction. A thick book, it’s an easy, breezy read
especially for those who love food and food-centric prose.

The tale centers on a too-young-to-be-a widow, Angelina D’Angelo, whose husband’s last act
before dying was to exert supreme effort to taste his wife’s chocolate cake. “… extended two
fingers the whole way across the table, scooped out a crumbly, nutty, succulent morsel, and
by instinct, guided it into his mouth. He smiled a sweet smile. His last breath was a sigh of
pure delight.”

Such description prepares the reader for the fact that this woman’s cooking must be akin
to tasting manna from heaven. Fraught with despair, Angelina cooks away her sorrows
and is left with so much food that she distributes the largesse to her neighbors in the
Italian-American community she lives in in Philadelphia. So taken is one retiree
by her food that he offers Angelina a peculiar job: to cook two meals a day for him, six
days a week. Before long, she finds herself feeding seven bachelors. The plot seems
almost too easy, and I can hear you saying skeptically, “Yeah, and she falls in love with
one of them and they live happily ever after, yadda yadda.” Not quite.

First, this is a story for the food lover, a story deeply steeped in the Italian culinary life
such as the Feast of Fishes, flashbacks to Angelina’s food-filled, family-centered
childhood, etc. Sentences are so laden with food images and so easy to visualize
that one can’t help but think what a delicious life this author must live: “Angelina
stole a glance at her and dipped into the bowl, seduced by the aroma of toast laced
with sweet and savory garlic, mingled with the soothing sustenance of good chicken
broth. She sipped and felt warm comfort spread…”

O’Neill deftly intersperses the tempting text with recipes. Mouths will water at the
description of a layered lasagna bound with four cheeses or a few chapters away, be
mesmerized by imaginings of a swarthy osso buco with egg noodles and capers. What
a delight to turn the page and be gifted with the recipe! There’s also so much
description given to the cooking process that it can make non-cooks believe they
can cook, and for frequent cooks, affirm what they already know: that cooking heals.
There’s a helpful recipe list at the book’s end, but it will have more meaning if you
wait and read it in relation to the story.

The book keeps good pace, seducing with its recipes. Written in the third person, it
focuses not just on Angelina’s point of view, but on several of the other major
characters allowing the reader a fuller grasp of the plot. Because of this technique
employed by the author, one gets to know the other characters and is enabled to
empathize with them further into the novel. Equal concentration is also given to
events happening outside this so-called supper club so the story’s perspective doesn’t
seem so myopic.

Having lulled yourself to near starvation with such luscious prose, and wondering
when it will end, O’Neill suddenly wakes up his readers with a surprise development;
truly something no one could have seen coming. But its revelation won’t take away
from the book’s succulence. It’ll only make you want to finish the book as quickly
as possible and then make yourself some of that lasagna. (Psst, it’s on page 85).

My rating: ★★★★/5

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Angelina’s Bachelors: A Novel with Food 
By Brian O’Reilly
Paperback, 384 pages, Wiley