Tied to the Tracks by Rosina Lippi

From the Publisher

Miss Zula Bragg, award-winning writer in residence at Ogilvie College in Ogilvie, Georgia, has finally said yes to a documentary about her life. She insists that Tied to the Tracks, a shoestring film company from up North produce it-because, she says, they have an edge. So the entire company is summoned to Ogilvie-Angie Mangiamele, who writes, produces, and keeps it all together; Rivera Rosenblum, who photographs and edits; and Tony Russo, principal photographer and soundman. Only Angie is reluctant to head south because the new chair of the English department at Ogilvie is John Grant, and John and Angie have a fiery past.

A member of the founding Ogilvie family on his mother's side, John has finally returned home after years "up North" to take up his place in the community and to marry the lovely Caroline Rose, the last unmarried daughter of the prominent Rose family in what Ogilvie residents regard as the wedding of the century. The town-rich with tradition and rife with gossip-is fascinated by the three Yankees, but when it seems as though sparks still fly between John and Angie, the townsfolk rally to protect their own.

Publishers Weekly

Despite earnest attempts to tweak modern romance cliches, historical novelist Lippi (1999 Pen/Hemingway winner for Homestead) falls victim to the predictable plotting of contemporary chick lit in her first present-day excursion, a story of love in a small Southern town. When a struggling New Jersey film company, Tied to the Tracks, gets invited to Ogilvie, Ga., to make a documentary about renowned writer-in-residence Zula Bragg, Tied to the Tracks' owner, Angie Mangiamele, is thrilled to get the work-but not so thrilled to see old flame John Grant, chair of Ogilvie College's English department. John is brilliant, handsome, well-connected and about to marry Caroline Rose, youngest daughter of a prominent local family. Angie and John, under the gaze of prying Ogilvie eyes, try, and fail, to convince themselves there is nothing left between them. The more interesting story of Zula's secret past plays second fiddle to the ho-hum reunion of the star-crossed lovers. Several amusing secondary characters, including Angie's wisecracking business partners and the oh-so-Southern Ogilvie denizens, add to the story's charm, but the novel makes no real emotional demands. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

When documentary filmmaker Angelina Mangiamele's production company, Tied to the Tracks, is contacted by Ogilvie College in Georgia to produce a movie about prominent faculty member and literary celebrity Zula Bragg, she jumps at the chance even though her ex-lover, John Grant, has recently accepted a position as chair of the college's English department. Angie's arrival in Ogilvie sets in motion a series of events that affect the lives of the townspeople, each of whom including the secretive Zula has something to hide. As Angie and John slowly come to terms with their shared past, John finds his relationship with his fianc e, a fellow faculty member, falling apart. Lippi's (Homestead) Ogilvie is a quirky and picturesque Deep South town populated by characters both believable and outlandish. The writing is solid and the pace pleasantly leisurely, though the abrupt ending is a bit unsatisfying. Readers accustomed to Lippi's faster-paced historical fiction, written under the pseudonym Sara Donati, may be disappointed by this mannered slice of college-town life. Recommended for most fiction collections. Nanette Wargo Donohue, Champaign P.L., IL Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Bohemian Hoboken comes to buttoned-up Georgia in a smarter-than-average, second-time-around romance. They were clearly made for each other, but gorgeous, fashion-challenged Italian-American filmmaker Angie Mangiamele and "elegant and beautiful and strong" John Grant, academic scion of a significant Southern family, blew their first shot at a relationship in New York five years before this story opens. Lippi (Homestead, 1999) never explains precisely why, but it had something to do with Angie dying her hair blue before meeting John's grandfather. They're reunited here by a fairy godmother in the form of Miss Zula Bragg, an elderly black writer and creative-writing teacher at Ogilvie College, where John now works. Miss Zula never fully divulges her reasons for picking Angie's film company, Tied to the Tracks, to make a college-sponsored documentary about her, but the crew arrives in Georgia only days before John's wedding to Caroline Rose, predictably upsetting all plans. Small-town gossips, busybodies, family loyalties and traditions supply Lippi's sharp eye and dry wit with an abundance of material. Her touch is determinedly light, with only occasional references to less cozy issues like segregation and miscegenation that lurk beneath the largely benign Southern surface. Strongly cinematic and keen to compensate with charm for what it lacks in pace and plot, the novel is essentially an intelligent romp. The author pads the on-again/off-again love story with scenes of anger and sex while everyone waits for Caroline to break off the engagement. Lippi delays this until the very last minute, well after the book has run out of steam, while keeping her underlying themes of truth and deceptiontoo heavily tamped down. Bright and entertaining, but ephemeral.

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