MONA LISA SMILES

In Lloyd’s latest novel, a single woman’s life is upended by her unstable brother.

Yes, Mona Lisa Buttaro was named after the famous Leonardo da Vinci painting, and yes, she hates her name. After a lifetime of jokes, she’s more or less the last Buttaro standing: Her father has been dead for over 10 years, her mother lives in a retirement community, and her brother, the clinically paranoid and germophobic Joey, resides in a group home. Three months ago, Mona, 37, moved into the old family house in Seattle to clean it out and sell it. She’s also taken over operation of the family restaurant, Booty’s Cafe. She’s barely keeping it together—the long hours, the house, her mother’s Doberman, Figaro—when two intrusions make her life even more complicated. The first is Joey, who (along with the voice in his head named Saint Signore) leaves the group home and moves himself back into the house unannounced. The second is Cliff, the most popular guy from her high school class, who’s now a hot single-dad contractor. Cliff, who runs into Mona at Booty’s, volunteers his services as she prepares the house for sale. Mona has been unlucky in love for so long that she can’t help but wonder if Cliff might be the answer to her prayers. That is, if Joey and his voices (and her mother’s unexpected second marriage…and a secret half sibling reappearing out of nowhere) don’t screw it up. Mona narrates most of the novel, though some chapters follow Cliff and Joey as well. Lloyd’s prose is buoyant and engaging throughout: “Since Joey started working at Booty’s, his life had been warped out of shape, stretched and twisted to conform to Moni’s daily routine. He’d been determined to find a way to squirm out of going to the restaurant ever again—until last night, when his world went topsy-turvy.” Less a romantic comedy than a partly heightened story of a slightly dysfunctional Italian American family, the novel will win readers over with its deftly drawn characters and spirited scenes.

A charming novel about how family can be destiny.