Book review: ‘The Cheesemaker’s Daughter’ is a culturally rich novel that will leave you very hungry

This year, Marina’s annual summer visit to the island of Pag in Croatia turns into an extended stay. Marina has a lot to sort out, and home seems to be the place for that, if Pag is still at home.

Kristin Vuković’s debut novel is a delicious dish of culture, history, and the eternal struggle for balance between tradition and progress. “The Cheesemaker’s Daughter” is told from Marina’s perspective on Pag, where she spent most of her childhood and adolescence, while Croatia counts down the days before officially join the European Union in 2013.

After moving to New York as a refugee from Yugoslav Wars, Marina built a life in the busy city. But her work is unsatisfactory and her co-workers are hostile; the husband is inattentive and unfaithful; and with her difficulty having children, it seems like the life she’s built is eroding before her eyes.

There are many distractions for Marina in Pag, including a struggling family cheese business with failed Soviet-era machines and a rival cheesemaker whose son, Marina’s first love, could be the ruin of her family’s reputation if he keeps bumping into her and sending sparks flying. between them.

Meanwhile, there is an ongoing push and pull between the characters over gender issues – when to fight for parity and when to respect tradition and leave it be.

OK, so it may seem like everything is going wrong. And honestly it is. But at least there’s mouth-watering food.

Reading “The Cheesemaker’s Daughter” gave me a deep desire for cheese and a deep desire to visit Croatia. Vuković employs beautiful, sweeping sensory descriptions, from the smell of herbs in the air to the cry of seagulls, or the faded floral print on the sheets Marina has had since before she can remember. These rich details build a compelling world – shaggy but comfortable, cold but cozy.

Dedicated to the author’s Croatian grandparents who made America their home, the novel is culturally rich. Vuković takes us on a tour of Croatian history and cheesemaking that requires no prior knowledge of either, peppering these bits throughout the book like herbs dotting the shaggy coastal landscape. She takes care to explain everything in due time, slowly introducing and developing Marina’s experiences of religion, traditions, food and music.

“A Filha do Queijo” is a calm but imposing debut – a little repetitive, but in a way that forces you to slow down to the rhythm of island life. It’s not the kind of book that leaves you on the edge of your seat, needing to know what happens next, but it left me wanting to return to this world after finishing the book and leaving it.

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