Aftertaste

Lavelle riffs on hungry ghost mythology in her delectable debut. As a child, Kostya Duhovny maintains emotional ties to his family’s Ukrainian homeland through the food and stories shared by his father. After his father dies unexpectedly, 11-year-old Kostya feels adrift, receiving little comfort from his depressed mother. When his tongue registers the phantom flavors of pechonka, a chicken liver dish that was a favorite of his father’s, Kostya at first chalks it up to a fluke of memory. As an adult, he realizes his gift (called clairgustance) allows him to conjure up the favorite foods of the recently deceased and even to bring their ghosts back to share a posthumous meal with a grieving loved one. Determined to visit with his own dearly departed, Kostya begins dabbling in the afterlife—and the equally harrowing New York City restaurant scene—with dangerous repercussions. Lavelle hits a few false notes (“I love you like salt... make salt to me,” a lover says to Kostya), but for the most part, the exuberant prose leavens the story’s bittersweet pathos, and the novel brims with tantalizing descriptions of international cuisines. This inventive tale of food and family is likely to whet readers’ appetites. (May)