Tartufo is the book we all need right now
Set in a Tuscan village filled with quirky characters, giant truffles, and one endearingly clever dog.
It seems we might all be searching for some positive escapist reads these days, and who can blame us? There’s one type of book I’m drawn to again and again when this feeling hits: a book set in Italy.
A book set in Italy is my literary comfort food. Still Life by Sarah Winman carried me through a bleak month. The Sicilian Inheritance by Jo Piazza pulled me out of a reading slump last summer. The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell gave me the dark, atmospheric, historical novel escape I craved last winter.
What is it about Italy? It’s a place that captures the imagination. Its people are vivacious, full of fight. Its history is rich, ancient. And obviously, the food! The food casts a delicious spell on the page and off it. All this and more are perfectly captured in Tartufo by Kira Jane Buxton.
I picked up Tartufo on a whim, one of those rare books on NetGalley that called to me not because of its cover, a well-known author, or hype on Bookstagram or Booktok, but because of its premise: A rare, monstrously large white truffle (the largest ever found!) is unearthed in the fictional, dying Italian village of Lazzarini Boscorino, upending the lives of its inhabitants in a frenzy of greed, ambition, and existential crisis.
Because, as it turns out, a truffle is never just a truffle.
***
A Quirky Cast of Characters, Both Human and Not
There’s so much to love about Tartufo, but what makes it truly transportive is its fairytale-like quality—a story that feels like stepping into another world. From the very first page, the reader is met with a promise of enchantment:
“See-through scarves of scent curl from the forest and swirl toward a beautiful medieval village, perched upon a peak. Its tallest point an 11th century bell tower with memories of steel swords and shields.”
There is no single protagonist in Tartufo, but rather an ensemble cast of quirky characters that intersect, clash, and ultimately, orbit around the mysterious truffle. Among them are:
Giovanni, the gentle, local truffle hunter, is something of a recluse—his past marked by heartbreak, his present consumed by his beloved dog Aria, a truffle-sniffing prodigy.
Delizia, the mayor, carries the weight of the village’s survival on her shoulders, while also grappling with her own unresolved past.
Chef Umberto, a Michelin-starred chef in the neighboring, far more polished tourist town of Borghese, once desperately hoped to escape the confines of his small hometown, Lazzarini Boscorino. Now, cast as something of a villain to the town he left behind, he finds himself worn down by the relentless pursuit of excellence and status.
Giuseppina, the vivacious, spiritual, and fiery barista of the local (and, well, only) bar, is perhaps the town’s most larger-than-life character—and the most desperate to save it. Her marketing tactics are… unconventional:
“Giuseppina yanks up her singlet and bra, flashing a busload of wide-eyed tourists—her own dramatic take on waving a ‘save us’ sign from the sinking island of Lazzarini Boscorino.”
There’s more humor and delight in the way the author perfectly paints even minor characters. The village’s disgraced postman is “a wet weekend of a man.” The village priest is “a plump man of God, blessed with biblical black eyebrows like two Pekingese guarding the temples of his bald head.”
Buxton has a talent for not only funny descriptions but absurd dialogue and situations as well. One villager arrives in an elaborate papier-mâché costume, only for another to exclaim, horrified, “He has come dressed as a testicle!” (He was dressed as a truffle.)
Giuseppina, offended by a slight against her espresso, declares:
“My coffee is the fuel of this village! The elixir of life! It is why everyone here lives into their late nineties!”
To which another character dryly replies, “Yes, it’s essentially formaldehyde, you are preserving them all.” LOL.
But Tartufo’s real magic lies in its treatment of the non-human. The animals, the land itself, even the truffle—everything hums with personality, intent, and a touch of mischief, ready to mess with the humans they share the land with:
“The wind, pickled with flavors of the forest, ridden by the breath of the tiny god, tickles trees of olive and cyprus. Until it dangles its string of little calamities above cobblestone streets and terracotta roof tiles. And it settles upon the medieval village like a spell.”
Aria, Giovanni’s dog, is no mere pet—she’s a “dog-shaped burst of brown and white corkscrew curls” with “alert, almost-human hazel eyes.” She reads emotions in scent, from breakfast pastries to human sorrow (she sniffs out “sadness the color of crushed irises” in the village vet).
Buxton often takes a birds’-(or bees’?)-eye-view of a scene, painting sweeping, cinematic views of what’s happening down below in the human world. For instance, a honeybee embarks on a quest for nectar in a passage that reads like a miniature epic:
“A tiny Italian honeybee lifts above a patchwork quilt of vineyards and olive groves. She is on a life or death mission to find sweet sustenance. She flies fast… Below on the banquet table, the bee spots a steaming pot of farro and bean soup. Red velvet pillow on a pedestal cake stand, quietly waiting to flaunt the world’s largest truffle…. In a flash, a humongous hand is hurtling toward her. The bee is in for a head-on collision, human hand trawling the air right in front of her. Insect instincts light up. The bee flips her body in a mid-air turn. The split second flight maneuver spins her between two fingers as she narrowly misses a swatting.”
The menacing village patrol, a female cat named Al Pacino, is “best described as a cross between a crumpled tuxedo and a well-used toilet wand.”
Even the truffle itself is described in godlike terms, an ancient force lurking beneath the surface, waiting for its moment, “muscular and monstrously overgrown.”
A Story of Nature, Community, and Connection
On a deeper level, Tartufo is a book about about the folly of human ambition, the power of nature, and the lasting love of community.
The truffle is used as a metaphor throughout to describe the way humans try to cultivate and capitalize on what was never meant to be ours:
“The day they tame the white truffle will be a dark day. The white truffle will become commonplace. And we will once again be suffocating on our self-admiration while we mourn the enchantment of mystery.”
The book argues that the little things are the big things. There’s beauty in observation, in being in awe of and in harmony with nature. A truffle is not a valuable fungus to be controlled, sold, or consumed, but a tiny god to be worshipped, respected.
Tartufo is about what it means to belong to a place, even as it changes beneath you, and even as you try to run away from it. At one point, mayor Delizia reflects on her desire to abandon the tiny village and all its intimacies for a life of anonymity in a big city. After all, in “a tiny tight-knit village—try as you might—you can never hide from who you are.”
To escape a village like this is the dream, Delizia thinks. A village where everyone knows your past, where your childhood mistakes are still fresh gossip at the bar. Where there are more cats than people, and they, too, seem to be judging you.
But by the time the novel reaches its quiet, revelatory ending, the truffle has done what it set out to do: it has forced the village to reckon with itself. And as one visitor reflects, perhaps it was never about the truffle at all:
“I think…that your village might be the true truffle.”
Casting aside the glitz and glamour of the spectacle of the giant truffle, the town is pared down to its very earthly bones, the core of what matters: caring for one another. As one resident says, in what feels like a thesis of the novel:
“The truffle is who we are—not sitting on a velvet pillow in a castle, but a force of nature finding its way out of the dirt.”
A little sentimental? Maybe. But sometimes, that’s exactly what we need.
If you’re in the mood for a book that will make you laugh out loud, make you dream of sun-drenched Italian hillsides, and make you reconsider the profound existential power of fungus—Tartufo is worth your time.
It’s a little bit ridiculous. A little bit profound. And, like all the best things in life, utterly delicious.
Tartufo might be for you if you enjoyed:
Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe — Larger than life characters, a blend of heart and humor.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus — Aria the dog doesn’t talk in this book, but she has a lot of strong opinions.
Good Material by Dolly Alderton — Dry humor, funny and absurd situations.
Moana — The mischief and power of nature. ;)
Or…if you’re planning a trip to Italy soon, perhaps?
What beautiful things have you read lately that’s lifted your spirits?
My book club just selected this. Can't wait to dive into it now!
If you haven’t read Buxton’s first, Hollow Kingdom, you are MISSING OUT. Trust me!