There are three novels in print that were published under my own name. Note: In September 2025 there will be some excellent news about these three novels. They are all very important to me, for a range of reasons.
 Winner of the 1999 PEN/Hemingway Award. Shortlisted for Britain’s prestigious Orange Prize By the time you finish the first of these linked stories, you can hardly bear to have it end. The New Yorker This is a novel of great depth, compassion and tenderness. Brigitte Frase for The New York Times Book Reviews “Homestead” is beautifully and carefully written […] so rich is “Homestead” in evocative detail of a lost, unique world. Carolyn See for The Washington Post In a series of interconnected vignettes spanning 1909-1977, Lippi breathes life into the village of Rosenau, an isolated dairy-farming community nestled in the Austrian Alps. […] Lippi’s eloquent descriptions bring to life a world alien to the modern one yet brimming with emotions and events of universal understanding. An outstanding read. Melanie Duncan for Booklist One is reminded of Garcia-Marquez’s Hundred Years of Solitude, where the names also recur from one generation to the next, and whose style is similarly simple yet profound, honest and yet soothing. Dylan Evans for The Orange Prize (Britain) 2001 shortlist An intricately braided narrative about a place that will be, for most readers, at first foreign and then familiar. These stories about love and community are exceptionally vivid, even when they contain ghosts and traces of memory. Homestead is a book of marvels. Charles Baxter |
Rosina Lippi, . . Putnam, $24.95 (351pp) ISBN 978-0-399-15466-9The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square Southern hospitality and sweetly loose-lipped neighbors ooze from the pages of the sparkling latest from Lippi (Homestead). John Dodge is a traveling man, rescuing small businesses around the country to flip for a profit. When he finds himself in Lamb’s Corner, S.C., to take over a stationery store, he is greeted by some kooky Swedes building an automotive plant and an observant young girl who is determined to uncover his past, among others. Dodge, as he calls himself, befriends Julia Darrow, the owner of a fine linens store who is always in her pajamas. Julia is secretive and mysterious, but Dodge cannot ignore his attraction to her. He doesn’t plan to stay in Lamb’s Corner very long, and it becomes apparent that Julia can’t leave. Lippi’s characters are heartfelt and pricelessly named (one 10-year-old boy is called “Bean Hurtâ€). While the novel moves slowly, it’s never shy of drama: Lippi makes a great story out of how a hardcore wanderer and an agoraphobic come together. (Feb.) Publishers Weekly |
Tied to the Tracks Writing under the name Sara Donati, Lippi has authored the acclaimed Wilderness historical fiction series. With her newest novel, however, she turns her buoyant creative talents to the romantic comedy genre with an effervescent tale of a trio of offbeat Yankee filmmakers plunked down deep in the heart of Dixie to produce a controversial documentary about Miss Zula Bragg, literary doyenne of Georgia’s Ogilvie College. While on campus, partners Angie Mangiamele, Rivera Rosenblum, and Tony Russo must work under the auspices of the English department, chaired by Ogilvie’s fair-haired favorite son, John Grant, whose upcoming wedding to the town’s equally fair-haired favorite daughter, Caroline Rose, may be derailed once news of John and Angie’s previous love affair gets out. As the former lovers tap-dance around their still obvious mutual attraction, their friends choose up sides to ensure the wedding either does, or does not, take place. Lippi handles the prenuptial disruption and a dazzling array of hot-button social issues (racism and homosexuality among them) with cool aplomb. |